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THE 

FRENCH REVOLUTION 



AND 



RELIGIOUS REFORM 



AN ACCOUNT OF ECCLESIASTICAL 

LEGISLATION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON AFFAIRS IN FRANCE 

FROM 1789 TO 1804 



BY 



y 



WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE 

L.H.D., LL.D. 

SETH LOW PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



BASED 


ON THE MORSE 


LEC- 


TURES 


FOR 1900 BEFORE THE 


UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 


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NEW YORK 




CHARLES SCRIBNER'S 


SONS 




I90I 








THE tJ.SRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copita Received 

OCT. 4 1901 

COPVRIGHT ENTRY 

OCT. 

CLASS 

COPY B. 



k XX& No, 



Copyright, 1901, by 
Charles Scribner's Sons, 



Published October, 1901. 



THE DEVINNE PRESS. 



VIRO EGREGIO 

SETH LOW, LL.D. 

DE RE PUBLICA ALMAQUE MATRE 

BENE MERENTI 

HAS PRIMITIAS PROFESSORIATUS SUI 

DEDICAT SCRIPTOR. 



1 



PREFACE 

The troubles of a governmental system in which 
church and state were for centuries so closely identi- 
fied that responsibility could be fixed upon neither have 
dislocated the proportions of both in the field of his- 
tory. The ever growing disintegration and disor- 
ganization of ecclesiastical government in the Teu- 
tonic or Reformed Church, have in contemporary times 
discredited ecclesiasticism still further, and now its 
most modern forms appear well-nigh contemptible as 
historic forces. No wonder, therefore, that the latest 
generations have fallen into the natural but serious 
error of establishing for themselves, as a judicial 
standpoint, the total separation of church and state, 
not alone institutionally but likewise historically. The 
stubborn efforts to explain medisevalism with little or 
no consideration for the unifying political influence of 
the church are pitiful; the widely heralded discovery 
that the Thirty Years' War ended ecclesiastical politics 
is fantastic ; the so-called secular history of the revolu- 
tionary epoch, relegating church influence to a few par- 
agraphs, utterly fails to satisfy the demand for logical 
sequence. When we consider the splendors of the 
Roman Church in its long intervals of sanity, the sound 



Vll 



viii PREFACE 

views it held of life, the brilliant leadership it exer- 
cised in philosophy, literature and art, the lofty aims it 
exhibited, the ameliorations of social life it secured, the 
constancy of its work, the continuity of its life, the com- 
prehensive bond it was for all civilizing agencies — we 
cannot wonder at the hold it kept on men's imagin- 
ations even during its lapses into worldliness. 

It is therefore essential not that we should study 
secular history as a discipline of church history, but 
that we should give due place to the church as a social 
and political force everywhere and at all times. The 
Roman hierarchy in France was in the eighteenth cen- 
tury the most influential estate of the realm. Its in- 
iquities were long concealed by its traditional prestige. 
The masses were scarcely aware of the facts and they 
had a racial instinct of devotion to the papacy. During 
the long prologue to the Revolution the agitations of 
the public mind were confined to a minority of the na- 
tion; only a still smaller minority was able to draw 
distinctions, which appeared at bottom to be metaphysi- 
cal; and a very few displayed capacity for leadership. 
It seems as if there were not even a handful of indi- 
viduals who had an historic consciousness and the for- 
ward look essential in great crises. 

Nevertheless it is distinctly true that the deeper the 
insight we get into the facts of the Revolution, the 
clearer it becomes that both in its preparation and in 
its initial stages it followed wholesomely and normally 
French precedent and tradition. Had its course not 
been obstructed, the current might have flowed smooth- 



PREFACE 



IX 



ly, though at best too rapidly, and continuous reform 
might have in some measure prevented spasmodic revo- 
lution. 

But this was not to be ; the current was dammed, the 
barriers were inadequate, and the flood wrought havoc 
in its inevitable outbreak. Not one of the causes eener- 

o 

ally assigned is approximately adequate to explain the 
sad phenomenon. It was not solely due to fiscal bank- 
ruptcy, for the nation found resources which enabled it 
to put forth unprecedented exertions in both offensive 
and defensive warfare. It was not entirely caused by 
the survivals of secular feudalism, for those survivals, 
though oppressive, were insignificant in comparison 
with the feudal burdens carried by neighboring lands 
where no conflagration was kindled. Nor was it even 
measurably due to that mysterious, secret upheaval 
attributed to mental exaltation, of which so much has 
been suggested and hinted, but about which nothing is 
known ; the burgher and peasant masses of France were 
better instructed and more intelligent than their fellows 
elsewhere, but they only worried themselves into re- 
bellion, exhibiting no comprehension whatsoever of 
their plight or their task. Doubtless all these causes 
worked together, but the mightiest obstructive force 
was ecclesiastical fanaticism, both positive and nega- 
tive. This at least is what the following lectures are 
intended to suggest. The deism and atheism of the 
"philosophers" were alike organic and their suppor- 
ters were sectaries; they may therefore be regarded 
as religious forces for the purposes of our discussion; 



X PREFACE 

though they belonged neither to the category of re- 
vealed nor that of natural religions, their votaries were 
exact, strict, scrupulous, we may even say conscien- 
tious, in their devotion. 

The narrative of this volume follows as closely as 
may be the course of legislation and parliamentary de- 
bate. For the rather unsatisfactory reports of the lat- 
ter reliance has been placed in most cases on the 
''Moniteur," the ''Archives Parlementaires," the volu- 
minous ''Histoire Parlementaire" of Buchez and Roux 
and the original documents contained in the vast 
storehouse of printed sources published by the Muni- 
cipal Council of the City of Paris. The secondary 
sources, though likewise somewhat confusing in their 
accounts, are abundant. It is simply a burden to the 
reader to distract the attention and disturb the eye 
by giving references for every statement of well-known 
fact. Accordingly the footnotes have been confined 
to points of more special interest. The student who 
desires to follow and verify the context by personal 
research, can find most of the sources in the above 
collections under the corresponding date; those sug- 
gestions or indications not easily found are designated 
by footnotes. By far the largest number of the au- 
thorities are on the shelves of the Library of Colum- 
bia University and of the New York Public Library. 
For a few others I have been indebted to the National 
Collections in Paris, and to the libraries of Harvard 
and Cornell Universities respectively. The Andrew D. 
White collection of Cornell is especially rich in mate- 



PREFACE xi 

rial. As to the spelling of proper names there is such 
diversity in the original authorities that it seemed best 
to follow the modern usage of French writers. 

The substance of this book was delivered in the form 
of eight lectures before the Union Theological Semi- 
nary of New York on "The Morse Foundation." It is 
printed according to the requirements of the endow- 
ment, but the text has been expanded to more than 
twice the amount actually read. For the courtesy and 
good will shown by the officers of the Union Semi- 
nary in connection with the preparation, delivery and 
publication of the lectures the author makes grateful 
acknowledgment. W. M. S. 

Columbia University, October i, 1901. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction 

Danger of reform in old societies. The changes too swift, xxi. Contrast 
between 1780 and 1810. Transitory nature of the Bourbon restoration, xxii. 
Why the Revolution exploded in France. Composite forces of the move- 
ment, XXIII. Amalgamation of political with ecclesiastical power. Dangers 
of conservatism, XXIV. Dualism of secular and spiritual power in Chris- 
tendom. Relations of the two, xxv. The fortunes of feudalism and the 
popedom. Beneficent action of the church, XXVI. Overthrow of the pope- 
dom. Rise of nadonalities, xxvii. Place of Calvinism in the movement. 
Its political influence, xxviii. 



Chapter I 

REFORM AND REVOLUTION 

Split in the European state system. Rise of the revolutionary spirit, 3. 
Relations of the churches. The contract theory of government, 4. The 
class of professional writers. Influence of Voltaire and Rousseau, 5. The 
Physiocrats. Their ideals and sanctions, 6. Respective convictions of 
the social classes in France. L'lufdfne of Voltaire, 7. Meaning of tlie 
word. Loss of the historic sense, 8. Ecclesiastical organizations in 
France. Religion positive and negative, 9. Relations of the French 
monarchy and the popedom. Influence of the Jesuits, 10. The theory 
of Jansenism. The Jesuits and the Reformation, 11. The Jesuits and 
the popedom. Jansen's "Augustinus," 12. The Bull " Unigenitus." The 
power of Jansenism in French life, 13. Attitude of the French masses 
toward the hierarchy. Struggle of the parleynents , 14. Relation of the 
parlements to the people. The clergy demand the assembling of the Es- 
tates, 15. The grandes remotitra)ices , 16. 



Chapter II 

VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT OF ECCLESIASTICISM 

Elements of unity in France. Non-conformity a kind of treason, 19. The 
Bologna Concordat of 1516. Fall of the Jesuit order, 20. Papal control 
of the French episcopate. Disrepute of Jansenism, 21. Temporary dis- 
grace of the parlements. The privilege of a corrupt church, 22. Con- 
tributions due from church estates. Malversation of charitable funds, 23. 
Fusion of the nobihty and prelacy. The principle of beneficent use, 24. 
Wealth of the prelacy. Influence of the prelates at court, 25. Voltaire 
and the higher clergy. Persecuting spirit of the church, 26. The case 

xiii 



xlv CONTENTS 

of Calas. Sirven charged with infanticide, 27. Voltaire as a protector of 
the persecuted. The extermination of dissent, 28. Treatment of Catho- 
lic mischief-makers. The case of Labarre, 29. The victory of a cause. 
The edict of tolerance, 30. Emigration of the Protestants, 31. 

Chapter III 

THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 

"The infamous woman." Desire for emancipation, 35. Forms of oppres- 
sion. Items of the indictment, 36. Relation of the Protestants to French 
life. Their skill in public affairs and relation to the Revolution, 37. How 
they were goaded to fanaticism. The classical tendency in P'rance, 38. 
The classical spirit and constitutional government. Men as automata, 39. 
French theory of liberty, 'i'he secular idea identical in spirit with the reli- 
gious, 40. Corruption of the clergy. The affair of the diamond necklace, 
41. Virtues of the lower clergy. Their relation to the prelacy and to the 
Revolution, 42. Jansenism and the courts. Power of the lawyer class, 43. 
Political theories of the revolutionary agitation. All classes supporters of 
monarchy, 44. Idea of a republican monarchy. Awakening of the historic 
spirit, 45. Stages of reform. Ignorance of the masses, 46. 

Chapter IV 

ATTITUDE OF TPIE PRELACY 

Attack on the Bastille an act of self-defence. The alarm of the Paris popu- 
lace, 49. Broglie's mercenary army as a menace. The victory an act of 
faith, 50. Religious sentiments of the people. Acts of public worship, 51. 
Religious hope a characteristic of 1789. The Revolution as the work of 
God, 52. The transition to ferocity. The reactionary temper of the prelacy, 
53. It demands the abrogation of the edict of tolerance. Revolt of the 
Jansenists and lower clergy, 54. The cahiers of the clergy. The noble 
ai)bots of France, 55. Scandals of the monastic establishments. The pre- 
texts of the prelates, 56. Rise of popular authority. The populace inaugu- 
rates reform, 57. The attitude of the prelates a menace to reform. Forced 
enthusiasm of the Assembly, 58. The inconsistency of the burghers. 
Popular outcry against all clerics, 59. Contrast of social extremes. Revo- 
lution loses its religious character, 60. Internal caTises of social disintegra- 
tion. Attacks on property, 61. Discrepanciesof the tithing system. Amount 
of the tithes, 62. The burdens Ufted, 63. 

Chapter V 

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 

Motives for abolishing feudalism. The Assembly as a constituent body, dj. 
The unwritten constitution of France. The Tennis Court Oath, 68. The 
idea of fundamental laws. The Declaration of Rights, 69. The municipal 
revolution. The prelates as anarchisis, 70. The Assembly forced to out- 
run the Ecclesiastical Committee. How tithes were to be abolished, 71. 
The propositions adopted. Famine and the ecclesiastical estates, 72. Bit- 
terness of the radical agitators. The wealth of the prelates, 73. Constitu- 
tion of the Ecclesiastical Committee. The influential members, 74. Camus 
as a lawyer and scholar. His career, 75. Gr(^goire as a deputy. Excel- 
lence of his character, 76. Dom Gerle as an enthusiast. Religion in the 



CONTENTS XV 

Declaration of Rights, tj. The radicals dissatisfied. The call for complete 
religious emancipation, 78. The black cockade at the Versailles banquet. 
Mob violence against all clergymen, 79. Beginning of clerical emigration. 
Debate on religious liberty, 80. Moderation of the Ecclesiastical Com- 
mittee, 81. 

Chapter VI 

SEIZURE AND SALE OF ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 

Nature of church property. Voluntary contribution of church silver, 85. 
Dupont's inventory of ecclesiastical indebtedness. The heritage and the 
heir, 86. Contrast of popular misery and prelatic luxury. Maladministra- 
tion of public charities, 87. The king requested to confiscate charitable 
funds. Abuses in the hospitals and prisons, 88. The Bishop of Autun as 
a financier. All church property to be treated as the tithes had been, 89. 
Power of the mob. The academic debates on the nature of property, 90. 
Mirabeau advocates confiscation. Retort of Maury and counterpl'ea of 
Camus, 91. Common sense and juristic dialectic. Malouet as a concilia- 
tor, 92. Intervention of the mob. " Church property at the disposal of 
the nation," 93. History of the idea. Salaries provided for the priests and 
prelates, 94. Urgency for action. Exasperation of the higher clergy and 
the radicals, 95. The fatal errors of the Assembly. Contrast between 
dealings with monarchy and ecclesiastics, 96. The double attack on 
French society, 97. 

Chapter VII 

PRELUDE TO THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF 
THE CLERGY 

Dom Gerle as a dramatic element. The rise of democracy, loi. The higher 
clergy refuse reform. The lower clergy accept it but suffer, 102. They 
reject the new definition of property. Treilhard presents report of Eccle- 
siastical Committee, 103. Protest from the Bishop of Clermont. Report 
adopted and sale of ecclesiastical domains begun, 104. Monasticism at- 
tacked. New attitude of the Assembly toward Protestants, 105. The 
status of Roman Catholicism discussed. The motion of Dom Gerle, 106. 
The question formulated. Mirabeau desires Roman Catholicism to be a 
national religion, 107. He is hooted down. The substitute for Gcrle's mo- 
tion, 108. Protest of the prelates. Church domains seized and sold, 109. 
The Assembly's Poor Laws. Reform inaugurated, .110. The levelling 
process begun. The Third Estate and the proletariat, iii. Suffrage lim- 
ited to active citizens. Ehgibility to office, 112. The plan impossible. 
Paris overthrows the plan, 113. Recapitulationof Protestant history. The 
revival under Antoine Court, 114. Edict of 1724. Organization of wor- 
ship, 115. The Protestants emancipated. Treatment of the Jews, 116. 
Final dispositions as to Jews. The non-Catholic elements of French popu- 
lation, 117. The new idea of equality, 118. 

Chapter VIII 

THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 

Confusion in the popular mind as to aristocracy. The notion of representa- 
tion, 121. English and American precedents. French idea of church es- 
tablishment, 122. Limitations of popular sovereignty. Selden and Camus, 



xvl CONTENTS 

123. Religious habits of France. Rousseau's concept of absolute sover- 
eignty, 124. Confusion of ecclesiastical and secular powers. Imminence 
of civil war, 125. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy an effort at reform. 
The plea of the ecclesiastics, 126. Attitude of the Constitution toward the 
Pope. Popular choice of pastors and their ordination, 127. The outline of 
the Constitution. Choice of pastors by ballot, 128. The metropolitan 
bishop as the source of spiritual mission. The Pope as an expression of 
church unity, 129. Relation of the Constitution to the theories of the age. 
Hesitation of Pius VI, 130. The king's dilemma. Resistance of the prel- 
acy, 131. Robespierre's idea of priests as civil servants. Remnants of 
mediasvalism, 132. Growing opposition of the clericals. Outbreak of civil 
war, 133. Former theoi-y of the relations between kingship and the church. 
Change in the episcopate, 134. Pastoral letters of the ultramontanes. All 
refractory priests rebels, 135. The oath of allegiance, 136. 



Chapter IX 

THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 

Reform verges to revolution. Division of opinion among the canonists, 139. 
The king's attitude. He signs the Constitution with apparent sincerity, 
140. The oath of allegiance required from officiating priests. Demand 
that it be obligatory on all priests, 141. The clerical members of the As- 
sembly withdraw. They are supported by a majority of the laity, 142. 
Mirabeau attacks the clergy. The organization of the Constitutional 
Church, 143. Deplorable results. Silence of the Vatican and the king's 
duplicity, 144. False position of both parties. Character of the new clergy, 
145. Renewed rioting. The king turned back from St. Cloud, 146. La- 
fayette and the non-jurors. Rise of democracy, 147. Leaders of the demo- 
crats. The word "republic," 148. Classes of democrats. Louis XVI 
apparently yields, 149. The Constitutional mass at St. Germain I'Aux- 
errois. The Pope's Rhone counties, 150. He condemns the Constitution 
and the Revolution. Pronounces the former heretical, 151. Double-deal- 
ing of the Constitutionals. Resultant outrages, 152. Divergent course of 
Constitutional bishops. Death of Mirabeau, 153. The party of the "pa- 
triots." Disasters incident to the king's flight, 154. 



Chapter X 

WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 

The road to chaos. Final steps, 158. Jesuitry of the king. His plan 
thwarted, 158. The king's modves. His arraignment of the Civil Con- 
stitution, 159. Lafayette and religious liberty. The oath to the two " con- 
stitutions," 160. The disorders of 1791 due to the "patriot" party. 
Nature of the rioting, 161. Reports on the subject. Behavior of the 
Constitutional bishops, 162. Mob rule in Paris. Degeneracy of the 
Legislative, 163. The clerical oath a source of evil. Violence of the re- 
fractory clergy, 164. They are styled aristocrats. Renewed ecclesiastical 
legislation, 165. The refractory clergy denounced as traitors. Efforts at 
conciliation, 166. Violence of the non-jurors. Call for complete disestab- 
hshment of religion, 167. Increase of scepdcism. Idea of a national re- 
ligion, 168. The public festivals of France. The classical spirit, 169. 
Talleyrand's plea for national festivals. Mirabeau and Cabanis, 170. 
Mass celebrated in 1790 at the Festival of Federation. The " altar of the 



CONTENTS xvii 

country," 171. Beginning of atheistic festivals. Voltaire's remains to be 
placed in tlie Pantheon, 172. Vain protests against the decree. Triumph 
of the secularizers, 173. The new saint. Arrival of the procession in 
Paris, 174. Enthusiasm of the mob. Secular canonization, 175. Deifica- 
tion of Reason, 176. 

Chapter XI 

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 

State of the monasteries, 179. Strengthened by the law of 1790. A new at- 
tack, 180. The theory of public safety. The king alienates the legislature, 
181. The Girondists at the helm. Rise of the war spirit, 182. Duplicity 
of the king. Suspicion aroused, 183, Confusion of secular and religious 
duty. i^JIhe Avignon massacres, 184. No tolerance for the refractory 
clergy .^T'he king vetoes the decree, 185. Identification of all priests as 
traitors. Religion as treason, 186. Climax of riot and disorder. The 
Constitutionals take a fatal step,' 187. The country declared to be in dan- 
ger. The desire for anarchy, 1S8. Analogy with the English revolution 
of 1688, 189. No present hope for religious liberty. The Revolution as a 
movement against religion, 190. Defiance of European opinion. The 
convents closed and estates confiscated, 191. Massacre legalized. The 
battle of Valmy,.i92, -The Convention attacks all religion. The new oath 
of allegiance, ,193. Indecision of the Pope. Proscription of the clergy, 
194. Clerical rtrarriages prescribed. The swift descent to irreligion, 195. 
Energy of the radicals. Confusion of public opinion, 196. The notorious 
apostacy of 1793. Gr^goire stems the tide, 197. The Festival of Reason, 
198. The Festival of the Supreme Being, 199. Attacks on Robespierre, 
200. 

Chapter XII 

A GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 

All Christians temporarily united against atheism, 203. The horrors of de- 
portation. The emigration of the clergy, 204. The new conformists. Min- 
istrations during the Terror; 205. Behavior of the absentees. A faithful 
Constitutional, 206. GregoireVspeech on hberty of worship. The French 
fury, 207. Robespierre's fall, 208. The Thermidorians as persecutors. 
Triumph of moderation in Paris, 209. Gregoire's famous plea delivered. 
Effect of his pastoral, 210. Religious liberty decreed. Feeling of relief, 211. 
Police supervision of worship. No cessation of persecution, ,212. Salaries 
and pensions of clerics. The secular cult in preparation, 213. Dises- 
tablishment of the Constitutionals. Their organization perpetuated, 214. 
Celebration of the Decadis. The concept of Theophilanthropy, 215. 
Churches reopened. A new stumbling-block, 216. Compromise consid- 
ered. The royalist folly, 217. Reaction of the Convention. The clericals 
dismayed, 218. The Day of the Sections, 219. The Directory favors per- 
secution. The church bell as a party cry, 220, Revival of royalism, 221. 

Chapter XIII 

ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 

France and the new system of public- law in Europe, 225. Weakness of the 
Directory. The White Terror, 226. Its significance. Political power de- 
pendent on the army, 227. Failure of French armies. New arrangement 



xviii CONTENTS 

of French society, 228. No religious liberty under the Directory. Jordan's 
plea for freedom of worship, 229. Royer-Collard suggests a new concordat. 
The radicals again supreme, 230. The oath of hatred to royalty. Religion 
openly proscribed, 231. Deportation of priests. The Constitutionals again 
strengthened, 232. Revival and survival of rehgious feehng, 233. Reor- 
ganization of the Constitutional church, 234. Disintegration of French 
society. Meetings held on Decadis, 235. Resistance to the effort. Theo- 
philarithropy, 236. Its supporters and festivals. The high-priest and his 
assistants, 237. The services and hohdays, 238. Complete disorganization 
of Protestandsm, 239. Tyranny of the Directory, 240. "King arid reh- 
gion" the new watchword. Bonaparte's prestige, 241. Preliminaries of 
the Concordat, 242. 

Chapter XIV 

DESIGN AND FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 

The Day of 18 Brumaire. The rehef of France, 245. Character of the pro- 
visional Consulate, 246, The new constitution. Religious parties of the 
Consulate, 247. Their relations to each other, 248. The Freethinkers. 
Design of Bonaparte, 249. The First Consul's alternatives, 249. Views 
concerning the Concordat, 250. Defects of criticism. Views of the Or- 
thodox Catholics, 251. The Casuists. The system of tolerance, 252. 
Ministers of religion as state functionaries. Ideal of the Revolution. 
Bonaparte's aim, 253. The Concordat as a compromise, 254. Religious 
opinions of Bonaparte, 255. His ecclesiastical diplomacy, 256. Terms 
proposed to Pius VII. Change in the episcopate, 257. Reasons for the 
change. Negodations begun, 258. Attitude of the Constitutionals. Dis- 
position of the church estates, 259, The reconstruction of the episcopate, 
260. Conduct of Pius VII, 261. Strength of the First Consul, 262. The 
final draft of the Concordat, 263. 



Chapter XV 

ENFORCEMENT OF THE CONCORDAT 

The power of France. The weakness of the papacy, 267. The Council of 
the Constitutionals, 268. Wiles of the Papal negotiators. The state of 
public opinion in France, 269. The Consular court. Dispersal of radical 
forces, 270. Protests against the Concordat. Consalvi's charge of dupli- 
city, 271. Negotiations broken and renewed, 272. The crucial article 
accepted, 273. The Concordat proclaimed. Schism of the "Little 
Church," 274. Organization of the new system. The Organic Articles, 
275. Despotic elements of the latter, 276. Dissenters under the Concor- 
dat, 277. Importance of the new measures in France and elsewhere, 278. 
Changes in the other Catholic lands, 279. Modifications in France under 
Napoleon, 280. Effects of the Concordat in contemporary France, 281. 



INTRODUCTION 



1 



INTRODUCTION 

Libertas : quae, sera, tamen respexit inertem, 
Candidior postquam tondenti barba cadebat : 
Respexit tamen, et longo post tempore venit, etc. 
Vergil's Eclogues, i. 28. 

IN less than a single generation of mankind the 
French people were transformed ; comparing the 
close of the eighteenth century with the opening of 
the nineteenth, French society was in that short space of 
time almost transfigured. It was a pardonable exag- 
geration with which in 1795 Boissy d'Anglas exclaimed 
''We have lived six centuries in six years." The 
French nation was already old when the epoch displayed 
its first phase ; and, as the Latin poet has expressed his 
thought in a curious parallel, while sporting with its 
fellows in the thraldom of feudalism, its "hair began 
to fall gray under the shears" before it gained its mod- 
ern liberty. The Revolution, therefore, when it did 
come, was quite sure to be as it was, both hasty and 
thorough; in consequence there was no smooth trans- 
formation, but instead there were the roar and crash, 
the turmoil and dust of ruin. The contemporary 
mind, whether alert or pensive, found these outward 
and sensible appearances more interesting than the 
inner processes of construction, which were really 
more noteworthy. It is perhaps only now that, after 
the subsidence of the turbulent agitation, we can enu- 
merate the astounding results. 

xxi 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

In the second decade of the nineteenth century the 
old famihar things of the eighteenth were already afar 
off. The names of provinces hoary with age survived, 
but as memories only; feudalism, still rampant in 1780, 
seemed in 18 10 to have been a nightmare that had van- 
ished with the dawn; mediaevalism had been exorcised 
like an evil spirit ; titles of ancient nobility still tripped 
over men's lips, but as honorific designations merely; 
the real distinctions of life bore the names, not of 
French landed estates, but of recent battle-fields and 
sieges in distant countries ; the most coveted decoration 
was the red ribbon of honor controlled by an imperial 
democracy. There survived not one of the effete social 
habits of France ; every human interchange of relations 
in commerce, industry, trade, agriculture, education ; in 
the state, the church and the family — all were new and 
different from the old. It is true that the confedera- 
tion of European monarchies which momentarily over- 
whelmed the French democracy did, a little later, hang 
on the walls of Paris an obsolete standard to flap there 
idly for a brief hour. Louis XVIII. but served by his 
inglorious reign to remind a fervid people of terri- 
tories lost, of transitory glories, of national shame, of 
an antiquated absolutism revived for a time in Europe 
as the expression of national unity — elsewhere in real- 
ity, but at Paris as nominal and shadowy, despicable 
and hateful in the popular opinion of all France. Like 
other cast-off garments and institutions, the abso- 
lute Bourbon royalty was destined for the rubbish heap 
where it now reposes. 

This was the radical nature and these were the 
permanent results of a thorough and remorseless revo- 
lution, justly enough designated French though in 
reality European. It burst forth in France because 
there it had been longest in preparation and there the 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

crust of conservatism was thinnest/ but its causes are 
remotely traceable throughout all Europe and its in- 
fluences left no European land untouched. The rapidity 
of its course is the riddle of modern history, and of all 
the swift transformations which it wrought, the quick 
and utter disintegration of the social fabric in France is 
the most extraordinary. This dizzy movement has 
hitherto been studied from various sides, more particu- 
larly the political and fiscal. Some efforts have been 
put forth to examine the social history of the epoch, 
and a few valuable volumes have been devoted to the 
ecclesiastical revolution as such. But the secular ef- 
fects of the shocks which gradually shattered Ultra- 
montanism in France have not received the attention 
they deserve. The feudal church was the cement of 
French society to a higher degree than the absolute 
monarchy. The overthrow of the feudal church in- 
augurated the modern era. 

The intelligent observer of that interesting philo- 
sophic toy, the gyroscopic top, is aware that its nod- 
dings, turnings and backings are due to the composition 
of forces that can be separated and described. Never- 
theless what actually happens is not what is expected. 
Likewise the composition of forces in history produces 
results which defy prediction. Revolutions in history, 
unlike those in physics, turn moreover on several axes 
simultaneously, the hidden ones being generally the 
more important. Not until the social history of the 
revolutionary epoch has been written in a period 
which, considering the intricacy of the subject and the 
boundless material to be mastered, must still be far dis- 

^ See the remarkable predic- until after the author's death, 

tions of Mably, Des Droits et It is a brilHant examination of 

des Devoirs du Citoyen, Paris, contemporary thought and tcn- 

1789. The book, though writ- dencies. 
ten in 1758, was not published 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

tant, can our analysis be complete; but meantime the 
experiences of the French people in its religious life can 
at least be outlined. In order to understand them the 
threads of one certain process in history must first be 
caught up and re-knitted. The ecclesiastical condi- 
tions of feudal and royal Europe were basic to the en- 
tire superstructure of fiscal and administrative tyranny, 
which disappeared in England and America a century 
before it vanished entirely from French soil and par- 
tially from the rest of Western Europe. 

The expansion of social institutions for the sake of 
fuller personal life, individual and collective, is clearly 
the most desirable of mere earthly things. Slavery 
was a marked advance beyond the butchery of captives 
taken in war, and serfdom is a state infinitely superior 
to that of slavery; the winning of civil and political 
liberties by man in the mass has lifted the race to a still 
loftier platform; when social liberty too is secured, 
when justice is equitably administered and human 
nature approaches perfection, the earthly Utopia will 
be at hand. But the projection of even the most ad- 
mirable institution down the ages, until it becomes an 
anachronism, is intolerable, for it checks the transition 
from uniformity and simplicity to variety and complex- 
ity, which we call progress. Slavery and serfdom, 
though once absolutely good, are to-day abominations 
wherever they survive; there are likewise forms of 
medisevalism equally abominable, to which men cling 
with fatal conservatism. 

We would not be alone in thinking that the single 
greatest fact of secular history was the emergence of 
Christianity from behind the veil of persecution, not as 
an adjunct of the empire but as a distinct human 
power, with a complete, separate organization of its 
own. It is well-nigh absurd to speak of church and 



INTRODUCTION" xxv 

state as two in the heathen world, but in the Christian 
w^orld they never were and for this reason they never 
can be one.^ 

The single, all important question throughout the 
Christian ages, from the day when Christianity was ^ 
recognized by the state, has been the relation between 
two utterly distinct powers, the spiritual and the tem- 
poral, each claiming its share of control over the indi- 
vidual man. It is self-evident that this relation can 
take only one of three forms : the temporal authority 
may control the spiritual, the spiritual authority the 
temporal, or they may endeavor to run equal and par- 
allel. In general, Byzantium represented the first of 
these three relations, Rome the second : the effort to 
establish the third is represented by the series of trea- 
ties known technically as Concordats, which mark in 
successive stages the failure of both the other plans. 
The survival in some form or other of each or all of 
these three ideas within Christendom is the stumbling 
block of contemporary life. In the nature of things 
we ought no longer to consider the relations of church 
and state; our attention should be focussed on some- 
thing far different, the relations of government and 
religion. 

The thirteenth century is justly regarded as the age 
at which the twin systems of feudalism and Roman- 
ism reached the culminating point of their constructive v^ 
Avork. Thus far they had assimilated and guided the 
intellectual movement of Europe completely, benefi- 
cently and almost without opposition. But when Pope 
Boniface VIII. (1294) reasserted the temporal as well 
as the spiritual supremacy for St. Peter's chair, the gen- 
eral and embittered resistance to his claims revealed the 

^ See the epochal book of M. Fustel de Coulanges, La Cite 

Antique. 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

impotence of the papacy.^ It was in vain that re- 
course was had to physical violence for the repression 
of error : spiritual control has no basis except in volun- 
tary assent, and the change already begun was only 
retarded not prevented. Almost simultaneously the 
system of land tenure based on defensive military 
power, which we call feudalism, met with a similar 
reverse. Charles the Great, Otto the Great, and the 
Crusades mark the successive epochs in which Euro- 
pean society, regardless of local or class distinctions, 
put forth common exertions for the common safety. 
One and all, these defensive wars displayed the im- 
potence of feudalism for the organization of the im- 
pulses and aims which were common to the West, and 
which demanded a political and social system com- 
petent to realize them in offensive warfare. The care- 
ful student of history can remark throughout the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a continuous, spon- 
taneous, though in the main unconscious, evolution 
of the forces destined to overthrow feudalism in its 
strongholds. In the necessary conflict between the 
social and ecclesiastical authorities, as represented by 
the church and empire, the former was in the main 
victorious; in the scheme of public life it relegated 
military force to a level beneath that of moral power, 
and for the man it exalted the value of love, charity 
and holiness as the aims of private life. 

Amid these very conflicts, however, the ecclesiastical, 
theocratic regime suffered its final, overwhelming and 

^ There is a striking contrast only by the intervention of No- 
between Canossa, where the garet, the agent of France in 
emperor was humbled by the his overthrow. Yet the corn- 
Pope, and Anagni, where the parison halts, for the French 
Pope, arrayed in all his eccle- monarchy had then supplanted 
siastical pomp, was made to the empire as representative of 
feel the rude buffets of Sciarra secular power. 
Colonna, and escaped with life 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

irreparable defeat. In its struggle for supremacy it 
had, unconsciously at times but for the most part con- 
sciously, assimilated feudalism; quite unwittingly it 
found itself doomed to the fate of feudalism. Abso- 
lute itself in the assertion of spiritual power, it stimu- 
lated the assertion of absolute temporal power as made 
by temporal feudal princes, and when political absolut- 
ism took the form of princely despotism, the papacy 
with its ecclesiastical absolutism became a temporal 
power itself. But not of the first order. The secularv^ 
spirit had swept humanity with it. Principalities be- 
came kingdoms and kingdoms became nations and 
nations became states throughout the western world. 
Imperial Catholicism disappeared in the disruption 
of imperial temporal power, Catholic ecclesiasticism 
was confronted by the menace of independent national 
churches. Local centralization seemed destined to re- 
place what was left of universal centralization in the 
church, just as it had already shattered the universal 
state; in the political crash Rome was but a fragment 
of feudal absolutism and so far contemptible. The 
Pope as a secular prince was but an Italian royalet, 
elective at that. The close of the fifteenth century 
marked the end of all effort to restore the pagan idea 
of unity in church and state. The question ever since 
has been one merely of their relations. 

As yet, however, neither feudalism nor ecclesiasti- 
cism had met with organized opposition. This was at 
hand. The successive revivals and reforms which con- 
stituted the new birth of humanity in art, in letters, in 
religion and in politics, were, each and several, con- 
scious opponents of the passing social phase. Though 
disdaining it, they were one and all forms of the protest 
which found its climax in Calvinism, religious, politi- 
cal and social. Calvinism was not merely a dogma; 



xxvlii INTRODUCTION 

it was and is a system embracing the totality of life, 
intended to supplant entirely the scheme of traditional 
authority as exemplified in Roman and feudal society. 
From its inception onward to 1650 it represented the 
vanguard of the coming age. It attacked the hier- 
archy, social, political and ecclesiastical, with the sword 
of the Bible as the only infallible rule of faith and con- 
duct. Shielding itself behind the buckler called the 
right of private judgment and using the watchword 
of reform, its battle-cry was the call for a return to 
more or less completeness of primitive Christian liv- 
ing. Its chosen style was "Reformed" not *'Protes- 
tant"; there was to be no break of historic continuity. 
But its recognized enemy was the theology of Rome as 
central to the whole despised system of religious and 
social tyranny. 

In the struggle for ascendancy between Rome 
and Reform blood flowed in torrents. In France the 
result was the formal defeat of Calvinism which took 
its revenge in furnishing the data for the radical phi- 
losophy of many among those who suffered ; in Holland 
the conflict produced the political liberties to a new 
nation emancipated from Spain, the land which under 
Philip II. represented the extreme reaction of medise- 
valism ; in Germany the Thirty Years' War was ended 
by a treaty which recognized the rupture of the Euro- 
pean state-system and established public law not ex- 
actly on a secular but at least on a political basis; 
England, with elements both Anglican and Puritan, 
became the foremost Protestant power, just as France, 
purged in the furnace of civil war, was thereafter the 
most intelligent and vigorous Catholic state. 



I 

REFORM AND REVOLUTION 



REFORM AND REVOLUTION 

THROUGHOUT the eighteenth century the critical 
spirit was abroad. Among the Teutons it was 
largely positive and constructive because successful in 
reforming every department of life ; among the Latins it 
was negative and destructive because thwarted in the 
spheres of church, state, society and learning. In the 
north the social movement was for the most part unsys- 
tematic, practical and adapted to local circumstances ; in 
the Roman Catholic state system it grew revolutionary, 
systematic and radical in almost exact proportion to 
the limitation by royal or ecclesiastical authority set 
upon its dimensions as to numbers and permitted scope. 
The reply to the Council of Trent, to the Society of 
Jesus, to the Index, was long in coming wherever the 
reactionary influence prevailed; when it did come, it 
was in the mordant, defiant language of Voltaire, in 
the appeal of Rousseau to an authority which was not 
that of Rome, nor of God in his Word, but which was 
that of Humanity as represented in a supposed state 
of nature. From this destructive criticism emerged 
what is specifically known in modern history as the 
revolutionary spirit, the central principle of which is 
an extreme and perverted conception of what the Ref- 
ormation called the right of private judgment. 

3 



4 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

To the Catholic the Reformer was irreligious, to 
the Reformer the Revolutionary was doubly so; yet 
the difference between the two latter was essentially 
one of degree and religious attitude, while that be- 
tween the two former was at bottom one of historical 
feeling. The Reformed Church gravitates at once in 
any moment of uncertainty toward Catholicism rather 
than toward the system of the Revolution. It is a 
question of accepting or rejecting a supernatural au- 
thority, of Theism more or less extensive and com- 
prehensive against Atheism more or less radical. 

Bacon and Descartes began the examination of the 
eternal verities in the light of reason, compelling the 
adaptation of Christian creeds to the truth of science 
as far as discovered. Hobbes, Spinoza and Bayle 
mark the transition into the narrowest conceivable 
Theism, discarding alike Christianity and revelation, 
setting the temporal power above the spiritual, subject- 
ing the Bible to the same rules of criticism as would be 
applied to profane literature. In Hobbes appears as a 
philosophic force the theory extracted by a Calvinistic 
reformer, Francis Hotman, from the Bible, and destined 
to become the dogma of all political philosophers down 
to the threshold of our own time, the theory of a con- 
tract between ruler and ruled. Used by Hobbes in the 
interest of absolutism, it was remodelled by Locke to up- 
hold the English Revolution of 1688, and in the same 
form it is fundamental to the institutions of our own 
Revolution of 1776. Finally Rousseau revamped it 
as the basis of the extremists of 1786 in France. 
The concept of sovereignty in the abstract, royal, eccle- 
siastical, aristocratic or imperial, formed by Bodin, was 
thus gradually transmuted into that of popular sov- 
ereignty expressed by majorities. 

It is to be remembered that the number of thinkers 



REFORM AND REVOLUTION 



5 



who busied themselves with such subjects in the seven- 
teenth century was very small. But in the eighteenth 
this was changed and the institutions of higher learn- 
ing produced both in Protestant and Catholic countries 
a class of men who, with the spread of education, found 
their account in writing for the press ; men of science, 
of letters, of philosophy and politics. Destitute for the 
most part of profound convictions, they revelled in the 
play of the intellect and deployed a versatility not often 
paralleled and never surpassed. The type of this class 
was Voltaire, to whom nothing was sacred. In his 
hands the theories of Hobbes, Spinoza and Bayle were 
further debased from a limited Theism into a system of 
vague Deism. 

It was here that the unprincipled, uneducated and 
unbridled spirit of Rousseau found and seized the rev- 
olutionary doctrine. Sophist and vulgarizer, he was 
the anarchist of the epoch, depicting with fire and 
fluency the vices of civilization, extolling the phantasm 
which he called the state of nature, and struggling to 
undo all that mankind had achieved throughout a long 
and painful evolution. It is likely that his influence 
would have been slight, if an abler man, the Abbe 
Mably, had not introduced into his Utopian dreams 
an historic and ethical framework sufficient to give 
them some appearance of reality.^ Voltaire was the 
prophet of the Constituents and Girondists, Rousseau 
of the Robespierrists. The former cared for nothing 
but emancipation from theology and ecclesiasticism, 
using their Deism as a means to an end ; the latter were 
stanch, convinced Deists, anxious for the stability of 
their Utopia, which they felt had no foundation except 
in their faith. The former were transitional, the latter 

* See Guerrier, M. W : L'Abbe de Mably, moraliste, et 
politique, Paris, 1886. 



6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

desired to abide in an earthly paradise of their own 
making. The former were latitudinarian, the latter 
were narrow fanatics. 

But what was considered the new knowledge was 
not complete either in the scepticism of Voltaire or in 
the deistical sectarianism of Rousseau. The Encyclo- 
pedia of D'Alembert and Diderot contained likewise 
the learning of the Physiocrats or Economists : to wit, 
the doctrines of Quesnay and Turgot as expounded 
by the latter thinker. These men, assisted by the hu- 
manitarian revolt against legal torture and excessive 
punishment, of which Beccari the Milanese is the best 
known exponent, were of course concerned with phi- 
losophy and politics rather than religion. The rising 
importance of manufactures and the influence of gen- 
eral enlightenment on criminal jurisprudence were 
substantive factors in the social and political problem. 
Great as Montesquieu had been, he clung to royalty 
as a focal institution, and suggested reform, the ne- 
cessity of which already cried to Heaven, along the 
lines of the English constitution. With the same con- 
servatism Quesnay and Turgot believed it an easier 
task to reform one man, the prince, than to change the 
masses; they too were royalists. But nevertheless 
they found the inspiration for their appeals to nature, 
by which they meant the nature and nature's God as 
described in the Scriptures; neither in Deism nor in 
Atheism, but in a clear definition of absolute right and 
wrong. What they said was not new, it had been from 
the beginning in the consciences of men, and therefore 
in literature, both profane and sacred. Their applica- 
tion of it was electrifying because they showed how 
little existing governments, hitherto engaged in mak- 
ing war and consolidating territories, could fulfil their 
function of executing justice without a scientific ex- 



REFORM AND REVOLUTION 7 

amination of social economy and the enforcement of 
that justice which is in the bosom of God. Industry 
and morahty, it was proven, were at least tantamount 
to courts and armies. This attitude of mind cannot 
justly be characterized as religious, nor can it on the 
other hand be stigmatized as essentially irreligious or 
sceptical. But the Physiocrats were enthusiastic, in- 
flexible, intolerant in a rather neutral creed and almost 
as violent sectaries as the extreme radicals. 

It is utterly impossible to determine the exact pro- 
portions in which these three revolutionary schools 
secured adherents. Theoretically the nobles in great 
majority were under the influence of the Encyclopedia, 
advocates of reform, social, political, religious. The 
burghers of France in considerable numbers were satu- 
rated with Voltaire's contempt for Romanism and 
Rousseau's scorn for monarchical absolutism; in the 
mass they were for overthrowing not religion nor 
monarchy, but the whole ancient system of alliance be- 
tween them. The great lowest stratum of artisans, 
laborers and peasants, was simply discontent. Blindly 
aware of the agitation about them they rushed first 
in this direction and then in that; now royalist, now 
democratic; now Roman, now radical. They groaned 
under the inequalities of justice and legal administra- 
tion, under the heavy hand of the monarchy in taxa- 
tion, under the tyrann}^ of the church in every social 
relation. 

The word 'Tnfamous" with which the writings of 
Voltaire abound does not appear to connote any of the 
ideas so continually attached to it by the orthodox. 
It is not Romanism, nor Christ,^ nor Christianity, nor 

^ There is, I think, but a sin- spelled in full because of an in- 
gle instance in Voltaire's writ- tervening modifier, and in that 
ings — viz., in one of his letters instance the article is feminine. 
— where the definite article is This would seem to indicate 



8 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

the church, which Voltaire designates by it. Little 
as he respected any or all of these, he had in mind the 
real and absolute tyranny secured by a union of secu- 
lar and ecclesiastical power. We wonder whether the 
perfect adaptability of Romanism to each and every 
form of human government is its merit or its fault ; the 
fact is certain, and the identification of the two powd- 
ers which was complete in the heathen world was at- 
tempted with a degree of success so high that it was 
not far from complete under the last three Louises in 
France. Under it there was no personal liberty, no 
equality of civil or political rights, least of all the fra- 
ternity which is central to the teachings of Christianity. 
The bloody centuries of Roman decadence were con- 
sequently the only ones remembered, while those in 
which the many and splendid services of the church il- 
luminated history were forgotten. The miasmatic 
lights of a rationalistic philosophy were chosen by revo- 
lutionists to be substituted for the ideals of Christian- 
ity, petty expediency for comprehensive morality, the 
despotism of secular power for the systematic tyranny 
of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. 

The state of society in France about 1786 was there- 
fore indescribably complex from the irreligious as well 

the personification of a system I^e ses 61us cheris nourritm-e vivante, 
hir i-hf^ r.Viracf' T'Tirfamf^ nl Descend sur les autels a ses yeux eperdus 

by the phrase 1. intame, al- ^t lui decouvre un Dieu sous un pain qui 

though of course it is merely a n'estplus. 
slight bit of evidence corrobo- 
rating a general impression. Finally, the strongest proof of 
In the Henriade he seems to our contention will be found in 
give his real estimate of a true the general tone of two short 
church in the well-known pieces, Relation de la Mort du 
words : Chevalier de La Barre and, es- 
,,^1- , . , , ,M A pecially, the Cri du Sang Inno- 

L Ecjlise touiours une, et partout etendue, ^^tif "Rr^ft, ^^^ :.^ 4-U tv/T i j 

Libre, mais sous un chef, adorant en toui ^ent. Both are in the Moland 
lieu edition of 1883. Tomes xxv- 

Dans le bonheur des Saints la grandeur 501 and Xxix. 375. They were 

Le Chris" deTos peches victime renais- written with an interval of ten 
sante, years between them. 



REFORM AND REVOLUTION 9 

as from the religious point of view. There was the 
church, outwardly comprehensive and dominant, over- 
whelmingly Roman and Ultramontane, but with nu- 
merous officers and adherents who were saturated with 
Gallicanism and Jansenism. There were the Protest- 
ants, few in number, but powerful in resources and in- 
tellect. These two social powers may be reckoned as 
conservative and positively religious. Finally, there 
were the three secular, revolutionary schools of Vol- 
taire, Rousseau and the Economists. These may be 
reckoned as radical and negatively religious. There 
was no stratification horizontally or vertically in the 
nation at large. Most of the mass was inert, much of 
it was fluid, and there w^as a portion neither one nor 
the other, but like the loose soil rendered friable by 
frost and ready for the action of stream and flood. 
From this element could be drawn a numerous follow- 
ing for whatever movement was at any given time most 
active and popular. Such disintegration of the lower 
social strata was mainly due to the ecclesiastical discord 
just mentioned ; the factions of Jesuits, Gallicans, Jan- 
senists, and Protestants were savagely embittered. 

At the close of the seventeenth century the royal 
conscience of France was itself uneasy and oversensi- 
tive. As the ally and supporter of the papacy, Louis 
XIV. fell on evil days. The reforming zeal of Inno- 
cent XL had spread into France, and some of the 
bishops contested the claim of the crown to name 
candidates for vacant livings, or to administer any ec- 
clesiastical revenues whatsoever, even those recently 
endowed by secular authority during episcopal inter- 
regnums. Determined to overthrow nepotism and 
simony, the Pope went so far as openly to attack the 
secular power, by withdrawing from the French and 
other embassies at Rome the cherished right of asy- 



lo THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

lum. The king threatened rupture; the clergy and 
nobles, assembled at Paris in 1682, formulated the prin- 
ciples of a national church, and these were promul- 
gated by royal ordinance. They were the expression 
of the religious consciousness and convictions of 
France, viz. : that the popes had divine authority in 
spiritual but not secular affairs, that even this was 
limited both by the conclusions of the Council of Con- 
stance regarding the powers of general councils, and 
by the prescriptions and usages of the Galilean Church ; 
finally that without the sanction of the church the de- 
cisions of the Pope are not infallible. While these 
four propositions were revoked under an agreement 
with Innocent XII., and by pressure from the cour- 
tiers and Jesuits who controlled court opinion, they 
represented then, and continue to represent, the attitude 
of an immense number of devout but enlightened Ro- 
man Catholics in France. The Galilean movement 
had numerous adherents throughout the eighteenth 
century, being in some respects unusually powerful in 

1789. 

The earlier years of that century marked the climax 
and incipient decline of the absolute monarchy. Rich 
and intelligent, both court and society in France salved 
the wounds to their pride, which had been inflicted 
through their military and diplomatic reverses, by the 
practice of a voluptuous sestheticism. Their religious 
confessors were in the main Jesuits. Their tendencies 
were consequently Ultramontane for the most part. 
Yet the splendid intellects of the time were sternly 
logical rather than authoritarian, and while some like 
Fenelon, Massillon, and Bossuet knew how with sweet 
reasonableness to steer the middle course, yet even they 
were Galilean at heart. The ''Telemaque" of Fenelon 
was a protest against Jesuit education, and cost its 



REFORM AND REVOLUTION ii 

apostolic author his banishment from court. Bossuet 
was GalHcan in the king's behalf, but Ultramontane in 
his attitude toward the Protestants; such were tlie 
splendor of his style, the beauty of his thought and the 
pathos of his mental attitude that his ingenuity as a 
trimmer passed almost unobserved. 

There was one manifestation of the religious tem- 
perament which must be recalled as a movement similar 
yet apart, that of the Jansenists. The concept of per- 
fect human freedom, as realized only in dependence on 
God, had in the early church produced the antipodal 
conclusions of Pelagius and Augustine : that men un- 
corrupted in Adam's fall might by the exercise of their 
own wills become the subjects of divine grace, that 
Adam's fall produced infinite guilt which could be re- 
lieved only by divine grace prevenient and predestined 
for some but not necessarily for all. The Jesuits were 
from the outset characterized by intellectual versatility 
rather than profundity. Nominally vassal to the papal 
see, they w^ere as really its master as the feudatory 
Charles of Burgundy was once the superior of his tech- 
nical suzerain Louis XL Devoted to the furtherance 
of Christian life, they were in foreign lands successful 
missionaries, because of adroitness and adaptability 
rather than in consequence of fearless assault; in Eu- 
ropean lands they deployed their activities as the edu- 
cators of all classes, notably the great, and in this func- 
tion such theology as they professed leaned toward the 
side of Pelagius, while their peculiar genius found its 
employment in a casuistry which turned the moral law 
into a supple and courteous minister of both the states- 
man and ecclesiastic. Despising consistency, they first 
rolled back the tide of the religious Reformation by an 
appeal to conservatism, and then completely revolution- 
ized education by fearless innovation; they threw their 



12 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

adherents into intellectual subserviency but turned scho- 
lasticism into contempt ; they discredited the Inquisition 
throughout enlightened Christendom but established it 
in Portugal. In heathendom they displayed still an- 
other form of inconsistency, for they subordinated the 
effectual conversion of men to the interests of their own 
corporation. Intelligent, versatile, pure in their living, 
the Jesuits discredited the older monastic orders and 
rendered contemptible the degraded existence of the 
regular clergy as Erasmus depicts them. They were 
invaluable guides in every form of government; but, 
themselves the creatures of a despotism the completest 
ever devised, they had a natural affinity for absolutism. 
The kings of France fretted under their power, but 
^could not dispense with their assistance. 

The Augustinian view of divine grace as precedent 
to human freedom was focal to the Reformation of the 
sixteenth century, and found its most extreme and 
logical interpreter in John Calvin, a Frenchman of 
Picardy.^ But the ideas of an infallible Bible replacing 
the infallible church, and of the God-man, Christ 
Jesus, as the sole mediator, replacing both the secular 
hierarchy and the Christian priesthood, as alone the 
prophet, the priest, and the king, were intolerable to 
the great middle classes of Romanism, though most 
welcome to vast numbers of the aristocracy. It was 
Jansen, the Dutch bishop of Ypres, whose "Augus- 
tinus," appearing posthumously in 1640, set forth a 
system of fourth-century theology seemingly adapted 
to those who wished to remain within the precincts of 

^ James Russell Lowell has People not for the King, but 

an interesting parallel, in his the King for the People; Cal- 

essay on Dante, between the vin's Possible to conceive a 

political philosophy of Angus- people without a prince, but 

tinians in the thirteenth and not a prince without a people, 
seventeenth centuries : Dante's 



REFORM AND REVOLUTION 13 

the Roman Church. Rejecting papal infalHbihty, 
the dominant dogma at Rome, Jansenism accepted 
the authority of the ecclesiastical councils, and em- 
phasized the high view of election. Innocent X. con- 
demned the system in 1653; ^ ^ong, embittered quarrel 
ensued and even the bull "Unigenitus" of Clement 
XL, issued in 1713, created only the semblance of a 
peace. 

In the assurance of their own election the Jansenists 
felt themselves to be a spiritual aristocracy, fitly and 
naturally allied with the secular nobility. In this way 
at the very outset they became the supporters of Cardi- 
nal de Retz and made an irretrievable misstep in poli- 
tics. Socially they gave an example of austerity at Port 
Royal, impossible of attainment by society at large, and 
their immediate influence was insignificant. But in the 
permanent, enduring, unshaken forces of French life 
they have a name to shine ; the age of Louis XIV. claims 
as its own the combined renown of Pascal, Corneille, De 
Sevigne, and La Rochefoucauld, but one and all these 
Olympians were the stern opponents of the royal policy, ^ 
both religious and political. It was by the immortal 
literature of philosophy, poesy, satire, and wit that Jan- 
senism survived as a vital force in national life, and 
sustained the Gallican party in the Roman Church 
throughout the years which were the seed-plot of the 
Revolution. Persecuted as they were, mighty names 
were yet associated with them; names like those of 
the chancellor Pontchartrain or the splendid procura- 
tor Henri d'Aguesseau; and no less a personage than 
Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, protected them. The 
abolition and razing of Port Royal, the persecution and 
exile of its adherents, the fulminations of the papal see 
alike failed in their end ; when the Regency succeeded, 
Jansenism took a new lease of life. There was such a 



14 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

revival of Gallicanism that men on both sides of the 
Straits of Dover talked of uniting the Gallicans and 
Anglicans to resist papal usurpations. 

The political influence of the Gallicans had reached 
by the middle of the eighteenth century proportions 
that v^ere little short of portentous. The bull "Uni- 
genitus" or the Constitution, as it was generally called, 
was really the work of Letellier, Jesuit confessor of the 
king, and emanating from a French prelate was a 
measure grateful only to the higher clergy. Never- 
theless the lower priesthood and the masses of the peo- 
ple dumbly accepted it by the force of habitual obedi- 
ence to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. 

Yet, though the Constitutionists were the more nu- 
merous, those opposed were many ; and on their side as 
opposed to the new constitution of the papacy for 
France was what may be called, with some strain on 
the word, the ancient constitution of the country itself. 
According to the ancient custom and manner there still 
remained one powerful check on the royal despotism, 
the parlements or courts of justice, and that of Paris 
was easily the most important of them all. What with 
the persecution of Protestants and Jansenists by a royal 
absolutism under Jesuit influence, and the exorbitant 
taxation incident to court extravagance, and the extor- 
tions of the higher clergy, the scarcely suppressed and 
widespread discontent at last found vent in 1752, 
through a decree of the Paris parlement forbidding the 
outrageous but common practice of refusing the sacra- 
ments to those who denied the authority of the papal 
bull. This was a home thrust at the legislative power 
of the crown, and in 1753 the parlement was banished."^ 

^ Isambert, Anciennes Lois historique et anecdotique du 

XXIL, 251. D'Argenson, Me- regne de Louis XV., Paris, 

moires, Paris, 1857, L Ixxviii. 1851, IV. 465. 
civ., V. 215. Barbier, Journal 



REFORM AND REVOLUTION 15 

Nowhere were the Jansenists stronger than in the guild 
of lawyers and the provincial parlements followed the 
lead thus given. There was a sudden outburst of sym- 
pathy with the guardians of French custom far and 
near throughout the land. There were even assertions 
of weight that the nation was above its kings. ^ It was 
clear that a popular upheaval was possible and prob- 
able ; the Paris parlement therefore was recalled on its 
own terms and the clergy suffered for their contumacy. 
When, four years later, in 1756, the king declared his 
Grand Council to be sovereign, the parlement of Paris 
again defied him and promulgated a measure delimiting 
sharply the powers of the Grand Council. The third 
clash was even more violent. A month later began the 
Seven Years' War, the king by edict ordered new taxes, 
the parlement refused to register the edict as law and it 
was abolished in December.^ But the absolute author- 
ity of the crown proved to be merely nominal, for with- 
out the action of the parlements not a sou of the taxes 
could be collected, and three months later the recalci- 
trant court was restored. In truth public opinion was 
irresistible and by it both parlement and army were 
controlled. Not only could no taxes be collected, but, 
what was vastly more important in war time, no loans 
could be placed without the security, more moral than 
real it must be confessed, of a judicial registration. It 
was the Ultramontane clergy driven to bay, which, as 
early as 1750, began to recall the fact that once there 
were estates of the realm, and to demand their assem- 
bling in order to substitute a more pliant power in 
the representation of popular rights and public opinion 
for the stern, sturdy Jansenistic parlements.^ The 

* Barbier, Journal Historique, ' D'Argenson, VIII. 247. Bar- 

etc, IV. 424, V. 28, 238. bier, IV. 22. 

' Barbier, V. 163 et seq. 



1 6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

grandes remontrances, the bitter protests of the lat- 
ter, were too legal, too correct, too terse, too his- 
torical, to be longer endured. The Estates, however, 
were not called until forty years later, and when they 
met they proved more obdurate than even the par- 
lements. 



II 

VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT OF 
ECCLESIASTICISM 



II 

Voltaire's indictment. '' l'infame " 

VIEWED from without and in the large, the eccle- 
siastical machinery of France worked fairly well 
during half a century. In spite of friction between the 
throne and the Pope, the King of France still deserved 
his title of Catholic Majesty; in spite of the wide cleft 
between the princely hierarchy and the plain parish 
priests, both professed and practised obedience to the 
Roman See ; and in spite of the extreme divergence be- 
tween Ultramontanes and Gallicans, the powers of 
church and state were so closely identified as to present 
a wall of almost impregnable defence against dissent or 
heresy. This alliance made no pretence of mildness ; 
the sword of spiritual and temporal authority was one, 
and it was literally a sword. In an age of faith, excom- 
munication, entire or partial, ecclesiastical or social, is 
a deadly weapon; the church used it without stint for 
the state, as the state put its police system without 
reserve at the service of the church. To be orthodox 
was to be a patriot ; to be a heretic, Protestant, philoso- 
pher, or Jansenist, was to be so far a traitor. Thus 
thousands upon thousands were terrorized into silence 
and compliance; thus throngs of the truest and wisest 
were sent into exile; thus the dungeons were packed, 
the headsmen kept busy ; and thus the scores of torture 
chambers, with their hideous apparatus of rack, boot, 
thumbscrew, and furnace, were guarded by the state 

19 



20 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

through its soldiery, while the vaults of those hells on 
earth resounded with the groans of victims, no less 
pitiful because they were drowned in the minatory 
psalmody of monks and priests. 

It requires the free play of a well-trained historic 
imagination to apprehend the horrors of that despotic 
infamy which as so constituted Voltaire insisted should 
be crushed out. The latest agreement nominally in 
force between the Pope and the King of France was 
the Bologna Concordat of 1516 (Francis I. and Leo 
X.), which, as has been explained, balanced so evenly 
the powers of church and state that the latter was 
scarcely distinguishable in its authority from the for- 
mer. Wise men within the hierarchy fretted and chafed 
without ceasing under the bonds of a control from 
beyond the Alps, and it was Bossuet himself who led 
what is variously styled the Cismontane, national, or 
Gallican movement of 1682, an agitation which mate- 
rially enlarged the king's rights in ecclesiastical af- 
fairs {regale). This position of semi-independence 
was, however, abandoned almost at once by Louis 
XIV. in his dealings with Innocent XL during 1693, 
and thenceforward the temporal influence of the 
Vatican steadily increased in scope, and to the detri- 
ment of the secular power, until in 1764 the Jesuits 
were suppressed in France as within a short period 
they likewise were elsewhere throughout Europe. 
Their fall was precipitated largely by the decrepitude 
of the order, which had tumbled into the pit digged for 
its enemies. In Portugal it meddled with politics, and 
was banished by Pombal ; in France it threw itself into 
financial speculation, and the ruin it brought on itself 
by doubtful money operations in Martinique carried 
many great banking-houses down with it and brought 
on a panic. In other Catholic lands it was suspected 



VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 21 

both of political meddling and financial trickery. 
Final destruction overtook the Jesuits through the re- 
action due to Clement XIII.'s arrogance. He dared 
to excommunicate and depose the Duke of Parma, 
feeblest of many foes, for limiting the validity of the 
papal rescripts within his duchy. Such was the gen- 
eral bitterness throughout Catholic Europe that in 
1773 Clement XIV. issued the brief abolishing the So- 
ciety of Jesus in Rome. Frederick the Great and 
Catherine of Russia gave asylum to the exiled Jesuits. 
The former declared them the best of all the priests; 
the latter thought she could use them as political emis- 
saries. The effort to revive Hildebrand's preposter- 
ous claims thus failed, but in France, at least, there 
was still left under the absolute control of Rome the 
question of inducting into their sees bishops appointed 
by the crown. This was really the nucleus of the 
whole matter. A bishop of the old monarchy in 
France was well-nigh a reproduction of the great feu- 
datories known to Philip Augustus and Louis XL ; he 
was a person of enormous influence. Not without 
reason, he was defined to be a great gentleman, with a 
hundred thousand livres of income. 

The overthrow of the Jesuits in France was speedily 
followed by that of the Jansenists. The latter fell 
into a disrepute well deserved. They had degener- 
ated into mystics and miracle-mongers as far as their 
feeble religious activity extended. But their true 
vigor was still in evidence by the vigilance and vir- 
tue of the parlenients. Pompadour and her minister 
Choiseul had measurably favored Voltaire and the 
Physiocrats; they saw in the parlenients a means of 
postponing the deluge predicted by the besotted king. 
But when Pompadour died, and the vulgar Du Barry 
reigned in her stead, there came a swift reaction, and 



22 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Choiseul was disgraced in 1771. Philosophers, poets, 
wits, lawyers, reformers of all degrees were thrown 
out of court and the parlement of Paris was abol- 
ished, remaining in atrophy until Louis XVL, in de- 
spair, recalled its members and reestablished its or- 
ganization. France was amazed, but the anarchistic 
atheists saw another prop of society fall in the over- 
throw of the lawyers; they jeered at this new discom- 
fiture, and nothing was done. Jesuitry and Jansenism 
were both ended in France, and in appearance two 
warring factions no longer disturbed the ecclesiastical 
peace. The men themselves remained, however, and 
carried on their work as best they could. The organic 
church lost the aid of both Jesuits and Jansenists, and 
without any adequate intellectual power to guide it, 
was compelled to face its destiny. 

The first element of Voltaire's Infdme was the privi- 
lege of a corrupt church. The landed and vested estates 
of the Roman hierarchy in France in his day amounted 
in capital to about ten milliards of livres, say about two 
thousand millions of our money, and the income, in- 
cluding the tithes, though most disproportionate to the 
capital according to ideas then prevalent, and ridicu- 
lously small according to modern expectations, was 
still a hundred and forty millions, say about twenty- 
five millions of dollars, with a purchasing power at 
least threefold what that sum would have to-day. The 
total of the clergy, including monks and nuns, was 
over four hundred thousand in 1762, having dimin- 
ished by 1789 to something more than a quarter of a 
million. These non-producing recipients of the vast 
ecclesiastical incomes were actually about one hun- 
dredth of the population — a monstrous incongruity; 
and yet, in spite of the ever-diminishing numbers, they 
continued to consume a fifth of the total revenues of 



VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 23 

the entire country, a shocking and patent dispropor- 
tion. Had they paid the secular charges, both those 
still legal in 1789 and those for which step by step they 
had received dispensation, which alike should have 
been collected from their estates and revenues during 
the eighty years of the century antecedent to the out- 
break of the Revolution, their just contributions would 
have given a total of more than a thousand million 
dollars, and have made the bankrupt monarchy rich. 
Such were the numbers of human beings within the 
limits of France, and such the sums of money accumu- 
lated either by genuine piety or by clever extortion 
which were, to say the least, quite as much under the 
authority of a foreign potentate as within the jurisdic- 
tion of the native prince.^ 

The use which this numerous and wealthy corpora- 
tion, within the state but not under state authority, 
made of its enormous power was a sorry one and mat- 
ter of common knowledge. During the days of its 
wholesome, uncontaminated vigor, the church among 
its most important functions performed that of 
almoner to the poor; it was the organized charities' 
association of medisevalism. It differed, however, 
radically from what we understand by that term, for 
with its enforced collections it granted divine grace, 
and with its free gifts it dispensed human sympathy 
and religious consolation. 

But the emoluments of the church gradually became 

^ These estimates are based Boiteau. For the original doc- 
upon the figures given by con- uments and an excellent re- 
temporaries of the highest sume, see Robinet, Mouvement 
character: Dupont de Ne- Religieux a Paris, 1789-1801, I. 
mours, Chasset, Polverd, and 209 et seq. There has been 
others. They do not differ ma- acrimonious debate on the ques- 
terially from those determined tion, which continues and seems 
by the ablest modern writers, likely to be interminable. 
C. Leouzon-Leduc and Paul 



24 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

a prey to unworthy men; the court rewarded its crea- 
tures by the grant of ecclesiastical benefices, the ap- 
pointment to livings fell into the hands of men without 
faith or respect for faith. The ranks of the clergy 
were gorged with men indifferent to every ecclesias- 
tical interest except the selfish enjoyment of church 
revenues. Not less than seventy per cent, of the mon- 
asteries in France were commendams — that is, held by 
some courtier, either ecclesiastical or secular, who 
performed none of the abbot's duties, but used the reve- 
nues for his own behoof! The secular organization 
of the church had thus become utterly recreant to the 
sacred trust of the poor, in a measure because of the 
neglect, or, worse, of the priestly hierarchy, but like- 
wise because a new state of society had succeeded to 
the old one, in which all the conditions were changed, 
in w^hich neither laity nor clergy held the old views of 
social relations, and in which old methods were worth- 
less. While the church retained all the sources of 
supply for charity, the collections and the bequests, the 
foundations and the income derived from them — these 
moneys did not even measurably reach those for whom 
they were intended. Secular opinion now recognized 
the validity of a new and revolutionary principle — 
that beneficent use is the essential condition of owner- 
ship — and demanded, in the name of public utility, 
that the state should expropriate the clergy and seize 
the charitable endowments. The result of the agita- 
tion proved that the clergy had no valid counter-plea, 
and when, in 1789, the crisis came, to an unexpected 
extent they themselves assented to the justice of expro- 
priating their corporate possessions. 

A fifth of the soil of France belonged in 1789 to the 
royal domain and to the public domains of the com- 
munes, a fifth to the burghers or third estate, a fifth 



VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 2^ 

to the peasants or country people, a fifth tt> the church, 
and a fifth to the nobles. Hence, in addition to own- 
ing palaces, chateaux, convents, cathedrals, and the 
richest chattels, such as pictures, gems, artistic furni- 
ture, and the like, the three privileged estates — viz., 
the crown, the nobles, and the great ecclesiastics, to 
wit, the bishops, commendatory abbots, and the chap- 
ters — had in their possession half the landed property 
of the state. Of these privileged orders that of the 
higher clergy was the most distinct and the richest. 
Accordingly, the second element of the national infamy 
was the ecclesiastical in another form, being, however, 
moral rather than financial. It was rendered possible, 
nevertheless, only by the malversation of ill-gotten 
funds. This was the gross worldliness of nearly all 
the higher clergy. 

Exercising its vast secular authority by treaty with 
the crown, the church furnished to the crown a class 
of courtiers which distinguished itself above all others 
in the qualities considered most vicious even by the 
crowds which haunted the antechambers of the king. 
Cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, or abbots, all alike 
were not merely well educated, they w^ere accomplished 
to the highest degree in the manners and mannerisms 
of court life. At every juncture of affairs they in- 
sinuated themselves by their charm and adroitness, as 
well as by the ecclesiastical authority which they 
wielded, into the royal closet, and, catching the mon- 
arch's ear, secured a double privilege — that of their 
own order together with that of the affiliated and re- 
lated society of the aristocrats. 

The last and least care of the higher clergy was for 
the parish priests or the masses of the population. 
They donned for the conflict of wits an armor of out- 
ward form and splendid ceremony ; they became casuis- 



26 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

tic, ritualistic, and formalistic to the extreme, setting 
beauty above faith, tradition above reason, prescription 
above conviction, form above content in all higher re- 
lations of man. They were as frivolous and vain as 
Voltaire himself, and often as atheistical ; but when they 
entered the lists with him to control the use and power 
of form in a nation and an age devoted to form he 
routed them utterly. He was superficial in his criti- 
cism, he was a tardy imitator of the English deists, 
he was ill informed as to historical truth, but he was 
downright in earnest, and, above all, he was the su- 
preme master of style.^ Thus when ecclesiasticism 
threw away its weapons of pure religion and impera- 
tive morals to fence with the foils of diction, state, or 
fashion, it was predestined to utter destruction at the 
hands of one who was almost superhuman in the mas- 
tery of all three. It fought with his own weapons, and 
he was the mightier fiend. The tilting amused many 
of the frivolous, but it disgusted most of the wise and 
good. The lampoon is harmless when directed against 
the innocent and true, but it shatters pretence and 
sham. 

But the organized and militant orthodoxy of Rome 
was guilty of a scandalous and shocking infamy in its 
intolerant and persecuting spirit. The three most fa- 
miliar and notorious cases are those of Galas, Sirven, 
and Labarre.^ These are the classical instances, because 
they were particularly the cause of Voltaire's fiery in- 
dignation. John Galas was a highly respected mer- 
uit is an interesting com- March, 1761, Moland's edition, 
mentary on the nature and Tome XLI. 251. 
quality of Voltaire's mind that ^ For a full account of these 

he could find nothing worth notorious and shocking infa- 
while in Dante ; he stigmatized mies, see Desnoiresterrcs, Vol- 
the Italian poet's imaginings as taire et J. J. Rousseau, pp. 407 
stupidly extravagant and bar- et seqq, 
barous ! Voltaire to Bettinelli, 



VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 27 

chant of Toulouse, noted in the community for his pub- 
lic and domestic virtues. Being a Protestant, he had 
no standing before the law, for after the revocation of 
the Edict of Nantes all Protestants were technically 
considered as Roman converts. Calas had, to the best 
of his ability, trained his numerous family in his own 
faith; one of his sons, however, became a Catholic. 
Another wished yet feared to do likewise. He became 
a gloomy, dissipated man, and ended his sad career 
by suicide. The sire, then in his sixty-fourth year 
of unblemished life, was almost at once charged with 
murder, the motive assigned being that the young 
man had desired to embrace the Roman faith. Popu- 
lar fanaticism was easily aroused to fury, especially 
when the Dominicans erected a catafalque and dis- 
played thereon the skeleton of young Calas. The un- 
happy father was condemned by the parlcmcnt of 
Toulouse with the formality of a trial, and publicly 
executed by the exquisite torture of the wheel. This 
w^as in March, 1762; the widow fled to Voltaire at 
Ferney, and at once the fearless old man began the 
agitation which resulted in the appointment of a spe- 
cial court and the reversal, all too late, of the iniqui- 
tous sentence. 

Pierre Paul Sirven was a Protestant notary of Cas- 
tros. His eldest daughter was seized in her home, on 
an order of the bishop, and sent to a nunnery, where, 
under the efforts to convert her, she became insane. In 
that condition she was returned to her family. Their 
care in shielding the unfortunate was falsely inter- 
preted into persecution of a new Roman convert. Ac- 
quitted by repeated official investigations, the sorrow- 
ing parents redoubled their cares, but the girl escaped 
and drowned herself. Father and mother both were 
at once charged with infanticide. In January, 1762, 



28 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

the entire family, menaced with worse than death, fled 
through winter's snows across the mountains to Swit- 
zerland. They threw themselves likewise on Voltaire's 
protection. Though tried in absence and executed in 
efligy, they too were acquitted by the pleadings of his 
caustic pen, not merely at the bar of public opinion, 
for in their case too the sentence of the same parlement 
of Toulouse was reversed. 'Taney, fancy," wrote the 
sage of Ferney, "fancy four sheep accused by a butcher 
of having devoured a lamb !" 

These two cases are fair samples of how the state, 
under the intolerant stimulus of the church, had tor- 
tured and shamed such Protestants as either dared or 
were forced to remain in France after the revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes and the death of Colbert. The 
whole shocking procedure of exterminating dissent was 
supported in the name either of the police or of poli- 
tics, from fear lest Protestantism should increase and 
menace the throne. Bossuet ^ gave the perfect exposi- 
tion of the method whereby, withdrawn from all re- 
striction of Rome, ecclesiastical and imperial, church 
and state may combine perfectly to enslave France. 
The king absorbs all temporal power and property, but 
gives his treasure and sword to extirpate heresy. It 
was this very principle, with the necessary changes, 
which, soon after, the radicals sought to use in monop- 
olizing everything for the secular power. In the case 
of the monarchy, as all the facts prove, the funds of 
the church went to swell the benevolences paid to the 
king just in proportion as persecution by the royal 
authority grew more and more severe. 

But the case of Labarre had nothing to do with the 
attempted identification of Protestants with criminals 
or traitors. It was an exhibition of the fierce vindic- 
^ See the Politique tiree de I'Ecriture Sainte. 



VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 29 

tiveness with which Mother Church treated mere 
naughtiness in her own faithful children. As such it 
had much to do with bringing the sore of revolutionary 
feeling to a head. Labarre was a chivalrous, careless 
boy of nineteen, who had been raised by his aunt, the 
abbess of Villaincourt. The attractions of the latter 
were noted by a worthless old rascal whose addresses 
were disdainfully repulsed by both aunt and nephew. 
Brooding on revenge, the hoary scoundrel learned that 
the boy with a friend had failed to salute the host when 
carried in procession through the streets, and as almost 
simultaneously a great crucifix on the Pont Neuf of 
Abbeville was one morning found mutilated, he insinu- 
ated that young men who could pass the host with in- 
difference might well be guilty of the other sacrilege. 
He likewise learned, through informers, that Labarre, 
while in his cups, had spoken scurrilously of Mary 
Magdalen. This was enough ; the court would show no 
mercy to the waywardness of youth. The boy frankly 
admitted a drinking-song referring to the saint before 
conversion, confessed the carelessness of his omission 
to salute the host, but utterly denied the sacrilege to 
the crucifix, and this was not proved or even indicated 
by witnesses. Yet he was sentenced to the rack until 
he should confess and name his accomplices ; his tongue 
was then to be cut out, or, if not extended, torn out with 
pincers ; his right hand was to be cut off and nailed to 
the church door ; he was then to be burned at the stake 
by a slow fire. This ghastly sentence, pronounced on 
February 28, 1766, was based on chansons aboniinablcs 
et execrahles. An appeal was taken to Paris and sup- 
ported by the ablest lawyers of France, but of the 
twenty-five judges before whom it was argued, fifteen 
rejected it, "led by political considerations" — in other 
words, intimidated by the clergy, as was well under- 



30 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

stood. These politico-spiritual judges, however, modi- 
fied the sentence in so far as to have the martyr 
beheaded before he was burned. Voltaire now dis- 
played all his resources, but the sentence was exe- 
cuted. The philosopher's defeat was the victory of his 
cause. Men did not forget what he solemnly asserted, 
that "a drinking-song is, after all, only a song; hu- 
man blood lightly spilt, torture, the penalty of a tongue 
torn out, of a maimed hand, of a body thrown to 
the flames — these are the things ahominahles et exe- 
crahles.'" 

Public opinion was momentarily overawed by these 
horrid cruelties, and the process of exterminating her- 
esy continued throughout the reign of Louis XV. 
There was for the dissenter or the suspect no freedom 
of speech, no right of public meeting, no ceremony of 
marriage or celebration of funeral rites, no recognition 
of the commonest rights of the subject, except under 
special favor of the church, until after the accession 
of Louis XVI. Banishment, fines, imprisonment, 
every form of disgrace and sorrow, were the portion of 
all who shrank before the infamous tyranny exercised 
by the union of secular with ecclesiastical authority. 
It was not until the ministry of Calonne, at the time 
of the assembly of notables, that the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes was disavowed and true tolerance de- 
clared. The edict of tolerance was issued by the king 
in November, 1787; its conception was due to Turgot, | 
its formulation and support to Rabaud St. Etienne, 
Malesherbes, Voltaire, and Condorcet. Lomenie de 
Brienne had the honor of presenting it to the king. A 
year later the States-General met. The delegates of the 
church were instructed to demand a revision of the 
edict. There was no reparation ; there was only a ces- 



VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 31 

sation of scandal, which in such a temper of the clergy 
could not long endure. The flower of French life, ar- 
tisans, manufacturers, aristocrats of birth and ability, 
had found refuge in other lands, and they had no in- 
ducement to return, for there was no change of heart in 
the ecclesiastical organization. 



Ill 

THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 



Ill 

THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 

THE three great principles of that organic union 
between church and state in France which 
brought disaster on both were, therefore, the vigilant 
and ubiquitous tyranny created by a wilful confusion 
of temporal with spiritual power, the monstrous wealth 
of the prelacy and its manifest abuses, the persecuting 
zeal of the combined powers of church and state. 
These three elements, as we have tried to explain, 
working in unison, produced the terrible fury personi- 
fied by Voltaire as "The infamous woman," a phrase 
reminiscent apparently of "The scarlet woman." ^ 
Could there be any true life, religious, moral, or intel- 
lectual, under such a three-ply cloak of infamy as this 
fury had forced on France? The stern answer is, No. 
It is no wonder that the one grim, determined resolu- 
tion of strong and thoughtful men was for what they 
understood to be liberty. 

Liberty was in no sense, not even the most restricted, 
to be found in this unhallowed alliance; nor could it 
have been in either church or state separately, even 

1 " To the crosier 
The sword is joined, and ill beseemeth it, 



Because being joined one feareth not the other." 

Longfellow's "Dante: ' Purgatorio,' " xvi., 106-112. 



35 



36 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

though it had been possible by any effort to divorce 
them. It was not liberty to be seized under the un- 
controlled warrant of the king at the behest of eccle- 
siastical courtiers and imprisoned in the Bastille, miti- 
gated as was the confinement by courtesy and even 
luxury of treatment; it was not liberty to be falsely 
accused of murder, under charges formulated by 
monks, and broken on the wheel; to be deprived by 
force of money and goods under the name of a loan to 
the king; least of all was it liberty to be subjected, 
under the pain of anathema enforced by the police sys- 
tem of the state, to all the various and distinct forms of 
extortion wielded by the hands of the Roman Church, 
no less than forty-seven in number. 

These last are of course a most important article in 
the bill of indictment; they may be found carefully 
enumerated in a volume published at Paris in 1790.^ 
Some of them are purely secular and may be reckoned 
as returns for immunities from exactions by ecclesi- 
astical feudalism; some are forcible usurpations by 
church corporations, continued until finally guaran- 
teed by the sanction of immemorial custom; the major- 
ity are systematic demands for sums graded according 
to degrees of fear, either for this life or that to come; 
many, alas ! are of a type too debased and savage to be 
named, connected as they are with the abuse of Chris- 
tian marriage even to the combined sacrilege and besti- 
ality of so-called mystical union with Christ. No ef- I 
fectual attempt has ever been made to destroy Rozet's 
credibility. He lived in the very epoch to whose dark 
superstitions he bore witness. 

Nor did liberty as a cause find a sure refuge among 
French Protestants, Calvinistic or Lutheran. The 

^ Rozet, Veritable Origine des given in Robinet, Mouvement 
Biens Ecclesiastiques. Text Religieux a Paris, I. 204. 



THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 37 

most inexplicable phenomenon of modern and even of 
contemporary French life has been the persistent, bitter 
hatred felt by the masses of the nation for the Protest- 
ants of France. Many causes conspire to produce it, 
and of these some are valid, or at least evident enough. 
There is tradition, a mournful heritas:e from the reio-ns 
of Louis XIV. and XV. There is race antipathy, for 
large numbers of those who have adhered to the Pro- 
testant communion in France are of Swiss and Alsatian 
origin. There is the difference of genius, for the 
Roman Catholic is easy-going and imaginative, yet 
home-keeping and hoarding, while his Protestant bro- 
ther, though thrifty, strenuous, and grave, wanders into 
all the earth and risks his savings in commerce for the 
sake of gain. The former, it is doubtfully claimed, 
begets the two-child family : it is certain that in gen- 
eral the latter has his quiver full. While this charge 
could scarcely be established except possibly in the 
great towns, it is true that the Protestant man is born 
to public affairs and exerts powerful influence in the 
state; the Catholic, conversely, seems to have only 
local interests and little genius for great organizations. 
Yet these are not sufficient reasons for the sustained 
and bitter animosity which is a lamentable feature 
of French life. The main cause lies in the mediating 
attitude of Protestantism to the Revolution, an attitude 
which unites Radicals and Catholics in their detestation 
of those who held it. 

The secular conflict with England seemed for the 
mass of Frenchmen to draw the sharp line of demar- 
cation between French patriots and all Protestants ; the 
great French Protestant statesmen of the old regime 
leaned in their ideals toward a commonwealth which 
was at least as aristocratic as their Presbyterian form 
of church government, and the Catholic king therefore 



SS THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

waged relentless warfare on them as hostile in politics 
to absolutism. The right of private judgment was 
revolutionary both to absolutism and Catholicism, 
while the firm belief in God was prohibitory to every 
form of the rationalism invoked by the Revolution in 
its extreme form. If the king and the bishop were ter- 
rible in their self-defence, the societies of the Red- 
Crests (Huppes-Rouges) and Black-Throats (Gorges- 
Noires), which were Protestant in their origin, met 
infamy with infamy, and left in their path throughout 
southern France a record of shocking inhumanity and 
abominable massacre comparable with the excesses of 
the Red and White Terrors in the centre and north of 
the country.^ The age destroyed moderation and tol- 
erance in religion even among many who had them- 
selves suffered shamefully from their absence in others. 
The martyrs were as intemperate and fanatical as their 
persecutors. Among neither class was it possible to 
form a nidus receptive of either moderate Catholicism 
or reasonable Protestantism ; and in an age of fire and 
sword, wisdom could not make its voice heard. 

Still another element in the working of Voltaire's 
infamous system, typically represented by himself as 
by no other man, was what has been called and in a 
sense is the classical tendency or spirit. The enormous 
strides of natural and experimental science led to the 
determined effort, not yet abandoned, to apply to hu- 
man and divine science the same or analogous methods. 
These efforts produced the scoffing philosophers, a 
small school at best, but one whose influence could not 
be measured by the numbers of its adherents. Their 
stronghold was the inherited classical spirit which has 
saturated the French from the beginning. In the 
Greek and Roman world the individual, body, mind, 
^Robinet, Mouvement Religieux a Paris, I. 311, 



THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 39 

and soul, had no place in reference to the State. It 
was only as a member of family, gens, curia, phratry, 
or deme, and tribe, that the ancient city-state knew the 
men and women which composed it. The same was 
true of knowledge : every sensation, perception, and 
judgment fell into the category of some abstraction, 
and instead of concrete things men knew nothing but 
generalized ideals. 

This substitution of subjective for concrete thinking 
was the Roman heritage bequeathed to Gaul and to 
France; Christianity has never rooted it out. To-day 
it banefully asserts itself in all the political and institu- 
tional life of the country. The science of human prog- 
ress in France knows nothing of perfecting the individ- 
ual man for the sake of a nobler public opinion and life ; 
but as a pure mathematic its units are abstracted, per- 
fectible humanities, shorn of personality, reduced to 
the lowest norm of inclusive homogeneity, and by com- 
binations of these unrealities, forsooth, in the ideal in- 
stitutions set forth by constitutions society is to be 
regenerated, progress furthered, and a monstrous, 
inhuman, complete automaton substituted for man! 
This was, as it remains, the inherent vice of what in 
this respect we call by their self-adopted name of Latin 
nations. In such a system even justice is abstract ; and 
if concrete personal security be refused to each man, 
how much more vague are the obligations of true re- 
ligion, which knows no organization of human units, 
church, state, or family, in relation to God, but only 
regards the individual soul to be saved, recognizing the 
three holy orders of church, state, and family, not 
as ends but as means ! 

This classical feeling was what gave form to every 
piece of institutional, philosophic, or religious raiment 
donned by France. Let each of us put on what he 



40 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

may, the familiar wrinkles and the troublesome hitch 
will assert themselves in due time, in spite of all the tail- 1 
or's art, and the constant strain will distort our garment 1 
into familiar shapes, do what we will. This is due ) 
to what we call nature, and classicism has ever been | 
the nature of France. This distortion is easily dis- 
cernible in the way she treated the whole philosophy i 
of emancipation and liberty. The grievances were j 
real enough and terrible ; the remedy sought was ideal 
and unhistorical ; and they called this phantasm by 
the sacred name of liberty ! Liberty is a thing which 
in its very essence is concrete, personal, spiritual, indi- 
vidual; dependent on the historic evolution of man, 
not socially alone and in the relation to human organi- 
zation, but on his attitude of restraint toward God and 
himself and on the moral order of all authority in 
refraining as in compelling. To the French mind 
liberty was either license under a hypothetical law 
of nature or political equality under political tyranny; 
in no sense was it the personal independence, compat- 
ible with legal and moral rights and guaranteed by a : 
forbearing and enlightened public opinion, which is the 
resultant of righteousness in the persons forming so- 
ciety. This Latin concept of liberty was the poison 
to be injected into the veins of the body politic as an 
antidote to the poison of the prevalent infamy; organ- 
ized and tyrannical secularism was to destroy organ- 
ized and despotic ecclesiasticism, monarchical absolut- 
ism was to make way for democratic absolutism. The 
latter Avas the device of Rousseau, it was his passion 
and his fire which entered the soul of France and so 
moulded, alas ! the whole Revolution. 

In this way the habits of the French mind lent them- 
selves to the spread of radicalism; similarly they lent 
themselves to influences of another kind which radiated 
from the lives of the higher clergy. Just as the radicals 



THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 41 

by the force of their public virtue sent the flame of their 
scorn broadcast over France, so the latter consumed 
all that was good in their cause by the scandals of their 
private lives. We have the testimony of Mirabeau/ 
the cautious and true reformer; of De Maistre,^ the 
Ultramontane but sincere and truthful ecclesiastic; of 
Montalembert,^ the authoritative historian; we have 
the pamphlets of the sufferers who cried to Heaven in 
outraged violence;^ we have the confessions of the 
clergy themselves in their most solemn utterances, as to 
the awful abuses and scandals prevalent and unchecked 
among them.^ We know, not in part but fully, of their 
sexual immorality, of their unprincipled self-indulgence 
in luxury, of their blasphemous impiety. The affair 
of the diamond necklace is incomprehensible to the 
student who does not understand that the violent out- 
burst of public opinion which it caused was owing to 
the fact that men saw in Cardinal Rohan a typical eccle- 
siastic willing to storm even the queen's chamber in 
the gratification of his lust.^ 

Yet there was leaven in the lump and salt that had 

^ In his speech of 26th No- Hildebrand onward. The lives 

vember, 1790. of the clergy form the satirist's 

^ Considerations sur la theme — Boccaccio, Rabelais, and 

France, Lausanne, 1796. Montaigne, Bayle, Voltaire, and 

^ Les Moines d'Occident. Diderot were all scathing in 

* Chassin, Les Elections et les their denunciations and ruth- 

Cahiers de Paris en 1789. Ar- less in their scorn. Their ef- 

chives Parlementaires, L-VIL forts were not without effect. 

See likewise the testimony of But there had been ever-recur- 

Proyart, Dorsanne, Montgail- ring relapses, and the general 

lard, and Desforges, themselves conditions were no better in 

priests; the original words are 1789 than they were at the 

given in Wallon, Le Clerge de worst. See Darimajou, La 

'89, p. 493. Chastite du Clerge devoilee, 

^L. de Poncins, Les Cahiers etc., Rome, 1790. Dulavre, Vie 

de '89, pp. 159 et seqq. privee des Ecclesiastiques. Par- 

Mt is well known that the is, 1799. Manuel, La Police 

corruption of the clergy and de Paris devoilee. Paris, 1792. 

the corresponding efforts at re- These sources are quoted in 

form were the highest care of Robinet, L 1 11. 
the church from the days of 



42 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

not lost its savor. While beneath the outward de- 
corum of the hierarchical clergy there prevailed such 
indifference and vice, while the monasteries were nests 
of corruption and bawdry, the parochial clergy, separ- 
ated from both by an impassable gulf, exemplified the 
highest virtues of their class. There were good and 
capable bishops, perhaps a hundred and twenty, which 
would be the majority; there were a few uncorrupted 
abbots and conventual chapters, a pitiful minority ; but 
there were fifty thousand honest, laborious priests, ear- 
nest in the care of souls, who were illustrious for the 
purity of their lives and their faithful performance of 
duty. Nominally they were supported by the tithes ; in 
reality a high official (gros decimal eur) took the enor- 
mous sums to which reference has been made and doled 
out to each a petty, insufficient stipend {portion con- 
grue) — about a hundred and fifty dollars a year; since 
they were illegally deprived, not only of all chance for 
advancement but even of seats in the church assemblies, 
they had no opportunity to introduce any reform into 
the system. This was the body of men which at the 
outset, by a considerable majority, cast in its fortunes 
with the Revolution. There was no redress from their 
haughty superiors, no money from the vast ecclesias- 
tical temporalities wherewith to relieve the poor or for 
parish expenses, no means for any purpose, in short, 
except for the scandalous luxury of pluralist dig- 
nitaries. 

Beside this practical common-sense virtue of fifty 
thousand plain men, in daily contact with about nine 
millions of other plain men, there remained, as we have 
noted in another connection, among the thoughtful 
Catholics a very substantial number of Jansenists, men 
saturated with Augustinian theology, bitterly hostile to 
Ultramontane pretensions, grim in their fixed resolu- 



THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 43 

tion to overthrow the infamous alhance of Rome with 
France. The constitution "Unigenitus" (1713) hav- 
ing split the Galhcan Church into two warring factions, 
even the crown (Louis XV.) could not enforce it, for 
his judiciary (parlements) unexpectedly arrayed itself 
against him in vindicating the majesty of the law. 
After an embittered struggle of sixty years the extreme 
step of abolishing the parlements was taken, as we have 
said, in 1772 (the Jesuits were expelled a year later), 
and new tribunals {conseils siiperieiirs) were created. 
Thus was arrayed against absolutism and ecclesiasti- 
cism all the Jansenist influence, all the animosity of the 
powerful lawyer class, all the statesmen concerned to 
find some working compromise, and the vast number of 
their families, adherents, and dependents. A moment's 
thought suggests the powerful Jansenist families of 
Arnauld, Le Maitre, Domat, and others, as identified 
in feeling and interest with the gens du robe, and 
among the statesmen it suffices to mention as typical 
instances the influential connections of men like Tur- 
got, Necker, Calonne, Lomenie de Brienne, and La- 
moignon de Malesherbes. This combination of re- 
formers could count among the representatives of the 
Third Estate chosen in 1789 no fewer than two hun- 
dred and twelve adherents. A sufficiently homoge- 
neous company themselves, they consorted at once 
with another which at first glance appears altogether 
heterogeneous, composed of sceptics, Galileans, and 
the parochial clergy. To this motley company flocked 
fanatics of every species. All these were determined 
to overthrow the feudal status of the church, to de- 
prive the Pope of his power of instituting the higher 
clergy, to secure the broadest toleration, and to sweep 
away all the vast temporalities of the church, which 
were the one supply of religious degradation. 



44 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Among these, as among all the thinkers of the eight- 
eenth century, there was, as we have elsewhere re- 
marked, not a single convinced republican, much less was 
there before 1792 a body of men willing to be called 
republicans and act together as a political force. But 
there were men in large numbers who were convinced 
that the character of the monarchy must be radically 
changed. Voltaire, in attacking ecclesiasticism, eman- 
cipated thought, and almost the first free thought of 
French patriots was that Roman influence as the basis 
of the monarchy must be undermined and abolished. 
Criticizing the claim of divine right historically, they 
concluded that the king was not above, but subject to 
the laws. With this in mind, they examined the his- 
tories of the more or less popular commonwealths of 
Europe sympathetically, and found many republican 
institutions which could profitably be engrafted on a 
monarchy, provided only it were not ecclesiastical, but 
secular and national. Yet whatever the various de- 
grees of republican sympathy to be found in Voltaire, 
Alontesquieu, Rousseau, Mably, D'Argenson, and the 
great mass of legists, physiocrats, and philosophers, 
they were one and all dominated by the conviction that 
while democracy might serve small communities, and 
aristocracy those of larger size, for a great homo- 
geneous nation there could be only one possible form 
of government — monarchy in some shape. France, in 
particular, had no hope for its emancipation under 
equal laws and institutions, except by the leadership of 
a king. More than ever under a renovated monarchy 
the ardent French could cry: ''One Faith, one King, 
one Law." 

It is difiicult to distinguish the elements of that em- 
bittered hostility to the church which is in evidence 
from the opening of the Revolution. Thus far it seems 



THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 45 

clear that several conclusions may be accepted as cap- 
ital facts. In the first place, just as the infamous 
system of governmental control confounded temporal 
with spiritual functions, the attacks of the discontented 
were aimed at the existing- Ultramontane church as 
being not so much the prop as the very foundation of 
the monarchy. Secondly, the moderate men of the 
upper and middle classes, having long cooperated in 
the resistance to a monarchy struggling to act with- 
out the parlemcnts, were equally zealous for a republi- 
can monarchy willing to base itself on the parlemcnts 
and act only by their cooperation and assistance. A 
third vital consideration is that the historic spirit was 
awake ; the parlemcnts claimed to be the legitimate suc- 
cessors, first, of the Merovingian Parlementa or As- 
semblies, then of the national gatherings under Charle- 
magne,^ and lastly of the mediaeval estates. It was by 
the use of these claims that they braved the crown when 
yielding to Roman influences, forced the unwilling 
clergy to administer the sacraments to Jansenists, de- 
nounced the king's prfnciples as despotic, and made 
their own assent or dissent determinative of the na- 
tional credit wdien indispensable loans were sought by 
the crown.^ 

It is excessively difficult to realize what a small pro- 
portion of the nation either understood such matters or 
W'as even in the slightest degree concerned about them. 
In all probability not more than a tithe even dreamed 

^ Charles the Great was sup- For an opinion of their nature 
posed even by the intelligent of and value, see La Republique 
the times to have been a liberal Frangaise, XXXIII. 349 and 
monarch reigning by a Teu- 455. Caree, author of the ar- 
tonic constitution, a false con- tides, discusses the career of 
ceit of which France has never Du Val d'fipremesnil, and in- 
rid herself. cidentally exhibits the use of 

^ For an enumeration of these grievances by a leader of 

grievances, see Flammermont, opposition. 
Remontrances, etc., II, 447. 



46 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

of dangers, much less of their remedies. It is not won- 
derful, therefore, that the reformers of the first stage in 
the Revolution (censitaires, or payers of taxes, especially 
those from land) dreamed of a burgher monarchy lim- 
ited by parlements, of a very restricted suffrage, and 
of a national assembly representing what was still a 
minority of intelligence, of modification rather than 
abolition of privilege. It is perfectly natural that, 
whatever their motives, they hated and despised the 
Roman Church as central to the old absolute system, as 
its bulwark, its rock of defence. They never dreamed 
of Rousseau's democratic tyranny as realizable in a 
great state. But the masses had no such ideas; they 
were unobservant and habitually faithful, believed and 
obeyed by routine ; suffered and complained, but kissed 
the rod, and considered the ironclad regulations of fees 
and formalities regarding baptisms, marriages, and 
funerals that were made and enforced by the church 
as the rough places on the otherwise easy road heaven- 
ward. They could scarcely distinguish the secular 
from the spiritual administration, for on the latter de- 
pended the question of legitimacy and so of property 
succession, real or personal; this, after all, was their 
chief concern, for their lives moved within limitations 
that included little more than the essentials. 



IV 

ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 



1 



IV 

ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 

THE destruction of the Bastille was an act whose 
motives were very complex. As has so often 
been stated and repeated, it did stand in the minds of 
many as a reminder of hated mediaeval institutions ; it 
was a fortress in the hands of absolutism, antiquated to 
be sure, but yet a fortress and capable of great execu- 
tion against unarmed people; it was a prison to which 
men were sent, without process of law, by the arbitrary 
whim of a prince, a luxurious and well-bred jail, but 
still a jail; the associations of most men with the 
name and thing were profoundly unpleasant and dis- 
agreeable. Yet, primarily, the attack was not caused 
by any one or all of these associations ; it was a simple 
measure of popular self-defence. 

On the fall of Necker, July eleventh, 1789, Paris was 
deeply moved ; next day the 3^oung lawyer Camille Des- 
moulins made his stirring call to the advanced spirits 
who used the gardens of the Palais Royal as a club; 
there were clashes between the king's mercenaries and 
the inoffensive but curious burghers on the streets ; the 
populace took alarm, seized the arsenals, and assumed 
the defensive. At Versailles the National Assembly 
declared itself in permanence, applauded the liberal 
sentiments ^ of its members, and enthusiastically ex- 

' For example, the cry of archy for France.^ not France 
Mounier : "We love the mon- for the monarchy." 

49 



50 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

pressed sympathy with Necker. Meantime the king 
had formed a new cabinet in which the Marshal de 
BrogHe was Minister of War and commander of the 
forces. Since the native French soldiery had for long- 
shown itself disorganized and out of sympathy with 
the crown, Broglie's main reliance was upon his nu- 
merous mercenaries, who were well armed, well sup- 
plied by an effective commissariat, and trustworthy. 
The people of Paris found itself between the guns of 
the Bastille and those of the royal forces. With 
shrewd strategy they preferred to face the antiquated 
fortress. There was a bloody storming on the four- 
teenth, and many of the attacking force lay dead be- 
fore De Launay, the governor, surrendered. Though 
it was probably by mistake, yet he had fired on the 
flags of truce sent forward with the people's sum- 
mons, and likewise on other non-combatants. The 
furious populace judged his intentions by his deeds, 
and showed him no quarter; having tasted blood, the 
armed citizens grew irresponsible, turned into a mob, 
and proceeded to further murders and assassinations. 
With dizzy rapidity the initial exploit assumed heroic 
proportions, and as the tale was told the interpretations 
were prophetic. 

Leaving aside for remark in another connection the 
political and institutional significance of the event, it is 
for our present purposes essential to recall that accord- 
ing to the expanding legend the persons who overthrew 
the Bastille understood the significance of their act to 
lie in the destruction of a tyrannical system, not merely 
in the annihilation of an antiquated, despotic engine; 
whatever they may or may not have understood, as a 
matter of fact they did not declare war on the founda- 
tions of society, least of all upon the church. It was 
their instinct and their joy immediately after their vie- 



ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 51 

tory to celebrate solemnly with a Te Deum a thanks- 
giving service in the great metropolitan cathedral of 
Paris. ^ In the same way, during the ensuing first 
period of the Revolution the national guards conse- 
crated their banners, buried their dead, and deposited 
their votive tablets before the altars of their parish 
churches. Preachers expounded contemporary events 
as the realization of the gospel, while officials, civil and 
military, used the pulpit as a platform; great political 
meetings were continuously held within consecrated 
walls, and no person or class felt any sense of inde- 
corum as attaching to these facts. This general ob- 
servance of religious forms continued for some years. 
The elections and assembling of the States-General 
were preceded and followed by masses ; for the famous 
night of August fourth, 1789, devout thanksgivings 
were poured forth, and in February, 1790, all Paris 
took the solemn oath to support the new order. Ca- 
mille Desmoulins used the columns of the ''Lanterne," 
the most radical of journals, to reiterate the words of 
Pope Benedict XIV. that France was the kingdom of 
Providence. On June third, 1790, a gorgeous proces- 
sion, arranged to represent the totality of the nation, 
celebrated the festival of the Holy Sacrament.^ 

When the States-General of France had assembled 



^ Proces-verbal des Seances graph is the eighth : "Ecclesias- 

et DeHberations de TAssemblee tical jurisdiction doth in no 

Generale des filecteurs de way extend over temporal ; its 

Paris, reunis a I'Hotel de Ville outward exercise is controlled 

le 14 juillet 1789, redige par by the laws of the state." The 

MM. Bailly et Duveyrier, 3 whole cahier is well worth 

vols., Paris, 1790. I. 459. Simi- study, and its comparison with 

lar services were held else- the civil constitution is most 

where. II. 115. In Vol. III., enlightening. 

p. 96, may be found the ca- ^ Robinet, Mouvement Reli- 

hier of the third estate of gieux a Paris, 1789-1801, I., pp. 

Paris regarding religion. Per- 105-110. 
haps the most interesting para- 



52 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

on that memorable fourth of May (1789), a day so 
smiHng, so sunny, so cheerful, the weather corre- 
sponded to the temper of the nation and of its dele- 
gates. The French world was full of hope and of 
enthusiasm, expecting the abolition of all personal 
misery and all intellectual discontent, not by revolution, 
but by the prompt adoption of salutary reforms. Dep- 
uties of the third estate (661), of the nobles (285), 
and of the clergy (308) all had their instructions 
(cahiers). The enfeebled religious faith of the eight- 
eenth century was still represented by a general iner- 
tia which may be called the habit of the soul, all the 
stronger because it was a spiritual, not a physical habit. 
With this the fierce and eager philosophers of the 
*'little club" in the Cafe Procope, and the small but 
intense minority they represented, dared not rashly 
tamper, still less with the Utopian enthusiasm for lofty 
institutions and pure administration which animated 
the whole of France. The religion of the masses and 
the reforming zeal of the working representatives from 
three estates alike prevented a theatrical performance 
on Easter Day as late as June second, 1791. On July 
thirteenth the National Assembly and all the local au- 
thorities, civil and military, of Paris gathered in Notre 
Dame and gave no sign of dissent when the preacher 
designated the Revolution as the work of God. Men 
still struggled cheerfully to follow the old paths ; they 
were sure that if the thorns and briers which choked 
them were once removed, society could pursue its 
course more easily and satisfactorily along the beaten 
tracks than by having recourse to new highways, how- 
ever straight and broad they were made by the compass 
and square of atheistic reason. Moderation and self- 
denial were therefore the order of the day. In spite 
of her horrid cruelties, the church was throughout the 



ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 53 

land still regarded as a careful mother who, with gra- 
cious benediction, was holding the hand and steadying 
the toddling first footsteps of the nation toward liberty. 
This is admitted almost in these very words by Robinet, 
the latest historian of the radical school. 

What brought about the swift revulsion of feeling? 
Why did the Assembly, so moderate in most things, 
display first an unintelligent zeal, then a fierce reform- 
ing spirit, and finally a savage persecuting temper in 
its dealing with ecclesiastical affairs ? Considering this 
enigma in the large, the answer has already been given : 
it was because the thinkers and reformers of France 
had come to despise the monarchy for its political fee- 
bleness, and saw in the church the mainstay of a gov- 
ernmental system which was rapidly degrading their 
land into a second-rate power. But so far their belief 
had remained in the stage of agitation, and action was 
impossible because of the conservative instincts of the 
burghers and their guides. But now all this was to be 
quickly changed. The opportunity was found in the 
haughty reactionary temper, which was partly ecclesi- 
astical, partly prelatical, and which committed the 
hierarchy to a policy of stemming completely the move- 
ment of reforming thought. At every opportunity the 
higher clergy exhibited a persistence of reaction in 
church matters which made them the conspicuous rep- 
resentatives of immobility.^ 

The first thunderbolt of dismay, therefore, which 
agitated the moderates and momentarily paralyzed the 
enthusiasm of the people did not fall, as might have been 
expected, from the lowering, muttering heavens above 
the radicals; it fell from the lofty presumption of the 

^ For the attitude of the in La Republique Frangaise, 
clergy toward the Protestants, XXXIII. 134. 
see an article by A. Lods 



54 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

higher clergy. We have referred to the degradation of 
manners, which amounted to unbridled libertinism in 
some cases, that so far characterized many of the pre- 
lates as to obscure the good fame of the rest. An anon- 
ymous address to the lower clergy, published in 1789, 
charged their superiors with being the most degraded 
estate of the realm.^ Its influence was enormous. 
Composed largely of men from the estate of the nobles, 
the prelacy nevertheless abated not a jot from their 
characteristic arrogance in the instructions issued by 
them with reference to the States-General. Roman 
Catholicism was to be maintained as the sole religion 
of the nation, to the exclusion of every degree of re- 
form; to this end the decree of tolerance was to be 
revoked, and every form of public education or instruc- 
tion was to be controlled by the church so as to mould 
the life of the people, spiritual, moral, and intellectual.^ 
The lower clergy then rose in revolt. They reiter- 
ated their charges of immorality, their complaints both 
as to the misuse of the tithes and their own exclusion 
from all control in the affairs of the church. The 
Jansenists embodied their position of dissent in a sepa- 
rate paper prepared by them.^ But the struggle of the 
parish clergy and of the Jansenists was on the whole 
ineffectual. Though they secured representation 

^ Reprinted in full by Robi- hiers de Paris. Also Le Genie 
net, I. 122. It opens: "Gentle- de la Revolution, II. 182. 
men, the moment has come to ^ The remonstrance of the 
break the chains with which Jansenists was written by- 
episcopal despotism has so long Pierre Brugieres, an official of 
fettered you." It demands the the Church of the Holy Inno- 
right of meeting, of choosing cents, and afterward constitu- 
curates, of representation, of tional rector of St. Paul's. It 
distributing the charitable is a pamphlet of a hundred and 
funds, and calls for a church twenty-three pages, given in 
council. The language is plain Chassin, and entitled Doleances 
and cutting. des figlisiers, Soutaniers ou 

^ Chassin, Elections et les Ca- Pretres des Paroisses de Paris. 



ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 55 

among the delegates of the clerical order, the body 
of instructions drawn up for the use of the clerical dele- 
gates remained as it had been — implacable and Ultra- 
montane. No worship except the mass, this rule to 
be enforced by the secular power, and to that end all 
dissent to be suppressed by the force of persecution. 
There was to be no alienation or diminution of tempo- 
ralities, no interference with the power of the estate 
except to increase it. To the crown was given a limit 
as to its misdeeds : it was to surrender its right to the 
income of the vacant abbeys. Two final injunctions 
looked in a direction different from the rest : no money 
subsidies were to be exacted except with the consent 
of the order which paid; there was to be no interfer- 
ence from without in the affairs of any estate or in the 
private concerns of the individuals which composed it. 
It must not be forgotten that the orders of the 
prelacy and the nobility were in a certain very impor- 
tant sense one and the same. The process of turning 
the monasteries into commendams had long been in 
operation. By the terms of the Concordat of 1516 the 
king was always to name as abbot a monk of the order 
at least twenty-three years old and never a secular or 
simple priest. But by coercion and chicane the crown 
forced on the monasteries, as the abbacies successively 
fell vacant, one favorite after another, secular priests 
and even unordained bachelors. The true cause of the 
quarrel of Louis XIV. and Innocent XL was the lat- 
ter's refusal to install as commendatory abbot the 
king's bastard son by Mme. de Montespan in the rich 
monasteries of Saint-Germain des Pres and Saint- 
Denis. By 1 79 1 there were in France no fewer than 
six hundred and forty-seven such commendatory 
abbots, presiding over establishments with revenues 
amounting by the official figures to about two million 



56 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

dollars, but in fact to three or four times that amount as 
money goes to-day. Against many of these the vilest 
charges were brought by their own colleagues. There 
were abbots who entertained their mistresses and bas- 
tard children within the convent walls; there were 
others who lived in open scandal with the noble abbesses 
of neighboring nunneries, and some who turned their 
official residences into haunts of vice for the nobility; 
in short, so many abbots were so openly reprobate that 
a papal bull on the subject was issued, and threats of 
suppression were made. Pluralism was almost a ve- 
nial fault, and was so common as scarcely to excite 
remark. The identity of nobles and prelates to such 
an extent as existed tended to fill both orders with a 
haughty pride and wicked exclusiveness. They made 
no secret of the disdain they felt for the secular parish 
priesthood, or for the excellent. God-fearing men of 
their own profession, men who conscientiously per- 
formed their duties and lived humbly in the exercise 
of their high calling.^ 

The real temper of the first among the three estates 
was therefore proud and unyielding. It matters not 
that it likewise demanded the regular assembling of 
the estates, the abolition of servitude in France and of 
slavery in the colonies, the publicity of treasury ac- 
counts and of all debates, the equable distribution of 
taxation; that the members expressed a willingness to 
pay taxes themselves according to their ability, that 
they called for the reform of the codes with the puri- 
fication of the prisons and galleys, that they desired 
the redemption of manorial rights and wanted respon- 
sible ministers in a free legislature — all this, specious 
as it is, matters nothing; they carefully withheld any 
statement as to the condition of their own purses, sug- 
^Robinet, I., p. ii6. Wallon, Le Clerge de '89, p. 493. 



ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 57 

gested no reforms in the gross mismanagement of their 
own revenues, and would Hsten to no meddling with 
the immunity from legal control which so long had 
opened the way to the most grievous abuses. 

It is a serious mistake, also, to belittle the importance 
of the attack on the Bastille from the purely political 
point of view. Throughout France the effects were 
everywhere and instantaneously revolutionary; imme- 
diately, and to outward appearance spontaneously, elec- 
tive municipal governments were formed to replace the 
crown officials; more menacing still, a volunteer mili- 
tia of national guards was organized, owning allegiance 
to these popular authorities only, and numbering ere 
long, as Necker estimated, between three and four 
millions of men. Simultaneously the country folk far 
and near demanded the destruction of those vexatious 
charters, dating from feudal times, which contained 
the provisions and guarantee of every abominable priv- 
ilege under which they groaned. This form of land 
tenure still exists in England, and is called copyhold. 
Ownership is under it conditioned on several forms of 
tribute, payable in kind or in labor. Wherever the 
privileged possessors in France resisted, their chateaux 
were pillaged, the muniment chambers broken open, 
and the dusty parchments given to the flames. In 
short, the populace began at once to take certain of 
the reforms demanded by the third estate into their 
own hands. This was the response of the plain people 
to the stubbornness of the ecclesiastics, the counter- 
stroke to their haughty fulminations concerning their 
church and order. The enthusiasm for moderate pro- 
cedure hitherto animating all Paris and the delegates 
sitting at Versailles got a jog from the energies of pro- 
vincial France which reminded those charged with 
reform that they must be up betimes and doing 



58 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

promptly, or reform would soon be revolution. The 
attitude so far assumed by the prelacy, and through 
them by the estate of the clergy, was a menace to the 
true reconstruction of society or even to moderate 
change; that of Frenchmen at large was a stern sum- 
mons to thoroughness and promptness. 

The result of all this was a species of panic at Ver- 
sailles, and in the hot haste to keep step with events, 
clergy and nobles, partly enthusiastic, partly terrified, 
but entirely in the interest of self-preservation, made, 
on August fourth, the well-known holocaust of all that 
survived to them of feudal privilege. The king alone 
remained a stranger to this forced enthusiasm, and 
wrote the Archbishop of Aries that it merely slipped 
over and off his soul ; that he would never despoil his 
clergy. But cold as was the royal inertia, public opin- 
ion moved right forward; on the tenth of August, 
1789, the tithe system was, under this pressure, for- 
mally abolished, and with it the annates or contribu- 
tions levied directly by the Vatican. Toward the close 
of October was completed a series of enactments, care- 
fully, dispassionately debated and studied, which pro- 
vided the practical means for the complete overthrow 
both of the feudalism and ecclesiasticism which had 
characterized the old monarchy and the ancient regime. 
It was far from the intention of the third estate 
that the clergy should retain its prerogatives, but how 
little the historic sense permeated the burgher class 
and its leaders, likewise how destitute of philosophic 
insight they were, can be seen in the attitude taken by 
their official instructions to their delegates, especially 
in regard to ecclesiastical matters. Demanding com- 
plete liberty, they yet, with perfect fatuity, contem- 
plated the perpetuation of Roman Catholicism as a 
state religion. They were as illogical as the clerics, 



ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 59 

never dreaming that a state religion was already an 
anachronism, and supposing that an official religion 
could be consistent with freedom of faith and worship. 
It is very difficult for readers in this land and age to 
realize that but little more than a century ago the 
most enlightened portion of the most enlightened Euro- 
pean people could form no conception of any or- 
ganized spiritual or intellectual activity performing its 
functions without state interference and regulation. 
The most conservative prelates, men like Marboeuf, 
Archbishop of Lyons, regarded the whole movement 
as anarchical; but he and his kind were at least more 
logical than the men, like Themines of Blois, who were 
ready to sacrifice their privileges if only they could 
keep their power; the Archbishop of Bordeaux outdid 
even the most liberal, offering to sacrifice half his reve- 
nue, and preaching peace and good will, but, like all 
the rest, he said not one word about liberty of con- 
science. This thought had no form in the mind of a 
single prelate ; there was no word for it in their vocab- 
ulary. This was why the electors of Paris, why the 
populace, which alone had an instinctive grasp of the 
situation, why, in short, the sharpened wit of the na- 
tion shouted : ''No clergy, no clergy !" The very men 
who embodied in their instructions demands for every 
species of ecclesiastical reform — liberty of conscience, 
abolition of Peter's pence, of monastic vows, of clerical 
absenteeism, of simony in the monopoly of benefices — 
in short, of every abuse; who suggested reforms 
amounting to revolution and utterly distrusted their 
spiritual guides — these were the men who yet fondly 
hoped to retain a reformed Roman Catholicism. It 
seems impossible, yet this was a phase of national feel- 
ing as disastrous as the haughty spirit of the prelates. 
"Truly," said Plautus, "a. man cannot suck and blow 



6o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

with the same breath." It required the blast furnace 
of Napoleonic imperialism to smelt the stubborn ore 
of lingering, unreformed Roman Ultramontanism, but 
even that could not melt out of the refractory French 
mind the fatal concept that a state religion is indis- 
pensable. 

The careful examination of these two extremes, rep- 
resented by the two classes of the privileged on the one 
side — the nobles and the clergy, and by the third estate 
on the other, untutored and over-sanguine as it was — 
this alone can lead us through the labyrinth of events. 
The antinomies of their respective positions were care- 
fully concealed by both parties alike from themselves 
and from each other. But, really though vaguely con- 
scious of it, they struggled to overcome the obstacle 
by debate; lofty as was the tone of their speeches, 
they failed in their purpose, and recourse was then had 
to riot for composing the irreconcilable extremes ; when 
riot showed its impotence, revolution took up the task. 
Even revolution was at first mildly religious, but ex- 
aggeration and exasperation soon gave impiety the 
upper hand, and it maintained its power until state and 
people were on the verge of disintegration. Then at 
last, after the Roman Catholicism, not of France alone, 
but of all western and central Europe, had been purged 
by Napoleon in the fires of persecution and humilia- 
tion, the compromise was reached under which France 
lives at the present time. The Concordat must be 
judged on its merits; it does not work smoothly now, 
and many believe the hour has struck for the next ad- 
vance; but a century ago it saved the existence of 
France as a nation, not because it was an ideal com- 
promise abstractedly, but because it swathed the swol- 
len veins and bandaged for the time being the flaccid, 
flabby muscles of the body politic. 



ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 6i 

The disintegration of French society during the 
early years of the Revokition, the complete abdication 
of its duties by the triple power of family, church, and 
state, the crumbling of every institution conservative 
in nature or tendency — this not merely was the riddle 
of the epoch itself, but continues to be the puzzle of 
later investigators. Nothing like it is known to his- 
tory in the long precedent course of recorded time; 
may the world be saved from comparable terrors and 
horrors until time shall be no more! The process just 
outlined w^as the internal cause, as the attitude of the 
European state system toward the movement was the 
external one. The French church withdrew from all 
constructive participation in much the same proportion 
as the foreign powers endeavored to coerce a jealous 
and sensitive people. The sane leadership of the true 
aristocrats, the pious, the learned, and the prosperous, 
disappeared just in proportion as a religious hierarchy 
dependent on an Italian potentate denied its assistance 
to the control of French affairs. Where calm judg- 
ment and moderate reform refused cooperation, fierce 
energy and radical revolution gained an entrance which 
fury widened into first one, then another and an- 
other breach, until the bulwarks against the ferocity, 
fury, and madness of the wicked fell before perni- 
cious activity in assault. We offer therefore no ex- 
cuse for reiterating the analysis of the process which 
led Voltaire to desire the divorce of church and state, 
Mirabeau to cry aloud for the decatholicization of 
France, and the vile Hebert to demand the dechris- 
tianizing of the land. The first step was when, under 
awful fiscal pressure, the ecclesiastical estates were de- 
clared forfeit ; the second was when a recalcitrant hier- 
archy was dissolved to find its substitute in a primitive 
and presbyterial organization ; the third was the attack 



62 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

on Christian worship, the attempted substitution in its 
stead of an atheistic, deistic, and eclectic heathen cult, 
each in turn; finally, the fourth was the reintegration 
of the social atoms under the Concordat of 1801. 

The benevolent despot was the hero of the hour in 
politics — all for the people, nothing by the people, was 
his motto. It was with the same air that the clergy 
and nobles went forward in the work of suppressing 
the tithes, long a hateful institution to the masses — the 
bloody leech, they called them, which sucked out their 
vigor and their very life. One efficient cause of the 
French Revolution, as is well known, was the utter 
absence of order in the affairs of the kingdom — the 
same thing not done in the same way in any two places 
throughout the kingdom. Nothing illustrates this 
more clearly than the tithing system. Many of the 
tithes, by far the largest part, belonged to the monas- 
teries, which collected them, acting in the role of gros 
decimateurs, and, absorbing most, doled out the 
wretched portions congrues, ranging from two to five 
hundred livres, on which the rectors or parish clergy 
starved. Another large portion of the tithes had under 
the feudal system been enfeoffed to lay suzerains, so 
that they actually formed the revenues of men not even 
sentimentally connected with the church or interested 
in religious affairs. Nor were there two provinces or 
districts where the assessments and collections were 
made on the same system, much less equably and 
equally administered. In tithing, as in the forms of 
taxation, the absence of all order in procedure opened 
wide the door to infinite irregularity, abuse, and tyr- 
anny. Somehow, by hook and crook, tithes to the 
amount of seventy millions of livres were collected by 
the ecclesiastics and ten by the lay owners. Allow- 
ance will be made for the high purchasing power and 



ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 63 

value of these sums, and to them must be added about 
three hundred thousand hvres collected by papal offi- 
cials directly for the Pope and transmitted to him. 
These were the annates. Such were the burdens lifted, 
with the attitude of benevolent condescension, by the 
clergy and nobles ; in reality there was no merit in the 
sacrifice, for they dared not act otherwise. 



V 
THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 



V 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 

IT is not clear from the records of the memorable 
night sitting of August fourth, when the Assem- 
bly declared "the feudal system utterly abolished," 
how far fear, how far generous impulse, how far a 
sense of constitutional pressure were singly and in com- 
bination the operative forces. Nor probably could the 
members of the Assembly have told, had they en- 
deavored to analyze their motives. In fact, using the 
word constitutional in its broadest sense, the decree of 
August fourth was simply the formal approval or rati- 
fication of the municipal revolution just noted, which 
had been the work of the French people, scarcely con- 
scious of its democratic, revolutionary attitude. The 
Assembly came into existence as a constituent body by 
procedures that were violent and irregular; it claimed 
recognition as national, but it could not really be so or 
be acknowledged as such, except as it appeared truly 
to represent and to lead the nation. Accordingly 
there was not a single element of the realm which did 
not accede; parlements, offices of taxation and credit, 
university, estates, and all the cities, every one hastened 
to participate in and approve the movement of the peo- 
ple. In this way the unity of France secured unmis- 
takable recognition; the army was required to swear 
allegiance to nation, king, and law; the officers, in 
presence of their troops and before the municipal 

67 



6^ THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

officials, were required to take an oath never to use 
force against citizens except on the demand of the civil 
authorities. Every vicar and rector was publicly to 
announce the fact and to assure the execution of the 
decree by the exercise of persuasion and zeal.^ 

So much of a constitution as existed in France an- 
terior to 1789 was of course unwritten. This tra- 
ditional and indefinite quality was a matter of indiffer- 
ence to the thinking men familiar with the English 
constitution; it was equally so to the instincts of the 
fairly intelligent, aware of the agitations connected 
with the parlements. These had insisted always on 
the existence of "fundamental laws," stunted and em- 
bryonic as they might be, and on the "most essential 
and sacred constitution of the monarchy," drawing a 
distinction most emphatically between statutory and 
constitutional law. Many thoughtful Frenchmen were 
likewise well informed as to the original State consti- 
tutions of our own country and the bills of rights in 
some of them. These all had been published in a vol- 
ume dated 1778. Initial and crucial to the constitu- 
tional struggle of the Revolution was the question which 
arose immediately on the assembling of the estates : 
Should the orders vote separately? In the former 
case the two higher orders would overrule the single 
lower one. Or should the members vote as individuals ? 
In the latter the six hundred and sixty-one deputies of 
the lower would outvote the combined five hundred and 
ninety-three of the clergy and nobility. The momen- 
tous scene known as the Tennis Court Oath, which 
gave the victory to the third estate, was in reality 
the climax of a movement by the parlements, lasting 
throughout 1788, to formulate the essentials of the 
"constitution." The effort at first blush appears ab- 
* Aulard, Histoire Politique de la Revolution Frangaise, p. 39. 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 69 

surd, because it strove to recall anachronisms from the 
antique privileges of the feudal provinces. Yet the 
struggle had vitality : the idea of a constitution, being 
repeated again and again in various quarters, finally 
became national. In many of the cahiers forming the 
instructions of the third estate it was pleaded that the 
"constitutives," or fundamental laws, should now find 
a firmer basis than tradition — viz., in justice and the 
welfare of the people. Only in this way, it was felt, 
could crying abuses be abolished and a return to sound 
government be secured. 

This was the agitation which had permeated all 
France. It partly explains not merely the overthrow 
of feudalism, but likewise the nature of the famous 
declaration of rights. The classical spirit furnished a 
rather foolish confidence in paper reform, but it was a 
glimmer of historic sense shining through the darkness 
of passion which furnished the items in that document. 
They are not all doctrinaire, as so many who know 
them only at second hand firmly believe; they are in 
large part concrete and real. Some of the paragraphs 
enumerate reforms already promised by the king, some 
aim to abolish historic abuses hitherto untouched, others 
recount the natural and civic rights to be guaranteed 
by a constitution, or form of government to be estab- 
lished for securing all rights in equal measure to all 
men. There are some — a few — which are purely theo- 
retical. These are absurd because based on Rousseau's 
contract theory of government; they either enumerate 
visionary rights presumed to have existed before man's 
existence as a social being, or else they recount so-called 
rights which could be deduced only from the imaginary 
contract, and are therefore as much in the air as the 
others. In the main, however, the items in the bill re- 
late, as was said, to existing abuses that are to be abol- 



70 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

ished. The whole paper is a compromise between 
theoretical and historical claims, but the latter, after 
all, preponderate.^ 

This constitutional agitation accounts, moreover, at 
least in part, for the curious phenomenon of the mu- 
nicipal revolution itself. It was the extent of discus- 
sion about fundamentals and the interest thus awak- 
ened which alone made it possible. But it did not 
break forth by the initiative of its own forces. The 
spread of delirium throughout France subsequent to 
the destruction of the Bastille was not really sponta- 
neous ; on the contrary, it was almost certainly due to a 
carefully arranged plan made and carried out by some 
one in Paris who remains still the Great Unknown: 
neither the prime mover nor the principal agents ever 
avowed their act. Several claimed the credit or dis- 
credit, among others Mirabeau, and then disclaimed it 
after the sad conseqences were only too apparent. But 
the work was thoroughly done, and in the crash of priv- 
ilege inaugurated on August fourth, the eagerness of 
all, from the weakest, who had nothing but expecta- 
tions, to the most powerful, who had millions, was an 
unprecedented illustration of the hysteria which over- 
powers crowds. Some few there were of the most 
experienced and adroit who kept their heads : of these 
probably the most were high-minded and sincere, but a 
number were beyond peradventure quite the reverse, 
anxious to create a chaos — a chaos from which no other 
order could be evolved than that which they pretended 
to overthrow. This was especially true of many among 
the higher ecclesiastical feudatories, whose subsequent 
conduct proved that the immolation of their quit-rents 

^ See two admirable discus- umes of the Political Science 
sions of this question by J. H. Quarterly for 1899 and 1900. 
Robinson, published in the vol- 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 71 

and mortmains was only a scheme to regain them in 
whole or in part on a surer foundation. But the tide 
of public opinion without the walls of the assembly 
chamber was too strong, and radical changes had to be 
made v/ithout awaiting the deliberations of the Eccle- 
siastical Committee. 

So it came to pass that the process was accelerated ; 
on the sixth, in spite of urgent efforts to save the church 
estates from the operation of the sweeping declaration 
made tw^o days earlier, all feudal rights and aids were 
formally abolished : quit-rents, mortmain, real and per- 
sonal, together with the remnants of serfage. These 
were the very corner-stone of feudalism, and were 
waped out without redemption : such only as were of a 
purely economic nature were declared redeemable. 
Next day the debate was less bitter and the game laws 
were reformed ; amnesty was granted to all offenders 
under the old system and the punishment of the galleys 
was abolished. On the tenth began the debate over the 
question of tithes : there was little dissent as to their 
abolition, but the widest divergence of opinion as 
to how it should be done. Arnauld and Dupont 
demanded suppression pure and simple; Lapoule sup- 
pression, but with a provision for salaries; Lanjui- 
nais and the Bishop of Langres pleaded for com- 
plete indemnity; Jallet, Gregoire, and the Bishop of 
Dijon earnestly desired the substitution of landed prop- 
erty yielding an income sufficient to support public wor- 
ship; Chasset suggested the redemption of such rights 
as were called lay, or infeudated, or impropriate — viz., 
closely akin to private ownership because they could be 
transmitted. This latest proposition, that of Chasset, 
was warmly supported by Mirabeau, referred to the 
committee, and ordered to be put into form. Sieyes 
argued forcibly for redemption in money or in kind of 



72 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

all tithes ; Lanjuinais and Montesquiou for their pres- 
ervation, together with all the ecclesiastical estates; 
Garat the younger opposed, and finally Talleyrand so 
forcibly urged Chasset's proposition that it was passed 
in the form reported by the committee. Measures 
were taken to abolish the annates (contributions to 
Rome), and thus the whole feudal regime declared 
abolished on the fourth was legislated away formally 
on the thirteenth. Two days later the decree was laid 
before the king; he, however, temporized and delayed 
its promulgation until the working details were com- 
pleted. It finally became a law partly on September 
twenty-seventh, partly on November third. 

The intolerable burden of the tithes, with its accom- 
panying scandals, was thus removed ; but there was an- 
other abuse equally serious. As early as the eighth La 
Coste and Alexandre de Lameth, nobles of the upper 
and lower castes respectively, had begun to demand 
complete religious reform : resumption of ecclesiastical 
estates by the nation and the abolition of monasteries, 
nunneries, convents, and abbeys. There was compara- 
tive calm during the ripe, dispassionate speech of the 
former, and some excitement under the fervid oratory 
of the latter. And well might there be a rising tide 
of earnestness, for the nation was swiftly approaching 
financial ruin, its people were threatened with starva- 
tion, and its affairs were on the verge of chaos. Pen- 
ury, want, hunger, were no longer abstractions, but 
realities. The autumn was fast approaching, winter 
was just beyond, there were no adequate food supplies 
and famine was visible in the near future. The privi- 
leged classes were still enjoying their revenues and 
savings, not in moderation, as might have been endur- 
able, but in ostentation and wasteful luxury. 

The agitators began to express regret that the work 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE n 

of July had not been thorough in the erasure of the old 
system, the unholy amalgam of monarchy, feudalism, 
and ecclesiasticism. Like Hannibal, they said, they 
had fallen asleep at Capua. Candles were still burning 
at the high altars and Te Deums rang through vaulted 
arches ; it was now feared that the clergy might regain 
its position as the first estate of the realm, a possibility 
to be avoided at any cost. Necker's propositions for 
fiscal reform seemed too slow and inadequate : let the 
state reclaim its own and put the clergy, w^ho retained 
the mien and port of masters, in their true place as 
servants. To this end France must resume what was 
really its own — viz., all the vast ecclesiastical estates of 
the realm. A considerable number stigmatized the 
proposition as nothing less than confiscation. There 
was much fiery fencing, but in the main an earnest mod- 
eration prevailed, and efforts were made either to evade 
the necessity or at least to find a method not openly 
attacking the right of property in either natural or cor- 
porate persons. 

As a proof of the enthusiasm with moderation 
which it was hoped and intended should still control 
the national representatives in dealing with religion, 
an able committee was appointed on August twentieth 
to consider carefully and report a plan of reform ; from 
its constitution, the liberal Galileans and Jansenists 
alike hoped for such a reorganization as would preserve 
the church but at the same time place it under secular 
control.^ At the head of the committee was Bishop 

^ The list as given in the min- Despatis de Courteilles, 

utes is: Lanjuinais, D'Ormes- L'fiveque de Lugon (de Mer- 

son,Grandin, Martineau,De La- cy), de Bouthillier. The sec- 

lande, Le Prince de Robecq, ond list was Dom Gerle (Char- 

Salle de Choux, Treilhard, treux), Dionis du Sejour, 

Legrand, Vaneau, Durand- L'Abbe de Montesquiou, Guil- 

Maillane, L'fiveque de Cler- laume, De la Coste, Dupont de 

mont (Frangois de Bonal), Nemours, Massieu (cure), Ex- 



74 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Frangois de Bonal, a determined conservative, but will- 
ing to reform abuses; associated with him as clerical 
members were the Bishop of Lugon with three cures, 
Grandin, Vaneau, and Lalande, all men of power and 
fitted to defend the parish priests against the superior 
orders of the hierarchy. A lay conservative was D'Or- 
messon, the well-known jurisconsult and a powerful 
court lawyer. Three liberal laymen were Lanjuinais, 
Maillane, and Treilhard : the first a canon-law jurist of 
profound erudition, the second a secular and ecclesias- 
tical jurisconsult of brilliant scholarship, and the third 
a convincing orator, still moderate but with leanings 
toward radicalism. In November the popular behest 
compelled the addition of several others; on February 
seventh, 1790, the committee was enlarged to double the 
original number by the addition, among others, of Dom 
Gerle the Carthusian, an extreme revolutionary ; of the 
Abbe Montesquiou, defender of the clergy ; and of Chas- 
set, a moderate liberal. The most important influence 
in shaping the measures eventually adopted was, how- 
ever, exerted by men not appointed even in the two 
first selections, but who began to cooperate later in 
the year : by Camus, counsel to the French clergy, an 
austere Jansenist, the oracle of the advanced liberals 
and therefore a most masterful man in the work; by 
Emanuel Freteau de St. Just, nobleman and councillor 
of the parlement of Paris; by Henri Gregoire from 
Lorraine, afterward the famous Bishop of Blois. 
Alas ! long ere this excellent committee could report, 
the passions of the populace gained in intensity to such 
a degree that calm deliberation was impossible either 
in its own sessions or in those of the parent assembly. 

pilly (cure) , Chasset, Gassendi ally refused to act — Bonal, 

(cure), Boislandry, Fermont, Mercy, BouthilHer, Robecq, 

Dom Breton (Benedictin), La- Salle, Vaneau, Grandin, La- 

poule, Thiebaut (cure). Of lande, and Montesquiou. 
the entire thirty, nine eventu- 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 75 

Camus was now a man of nearly fifty. Born in 
Paris, he had espoused the profession of law with ar- 
dor, and in early manhood had attained such distinc- 
tion in the field of ecclesiastical pleading as to be chosen 
by the Elector of Treves and Prince Salm-Salm for the 
defence of a famous plea they were urging against the 
Vatican. His avocation was the science of nature, 
and such was its hold upon him that he was perhaps at 
one time more famous for his classical translation of 
Aristotle's "Researches about Animals" than for his 
legal acumen. It was as an ardent liberal that he was 
elected a deputy for the third estate of Paris to the 
States-General. His talents marked him for distinc- 
tion, and he was made one of the secretaries of the As- 
sembly. One of the heroic figures in the Tennis Court, 
he sided with Mirabeau in his attitude toward royalty. 
His power as a lawyer rendered his appointment to the 
Ecclesiastical Committee imperative, and the Civil Con-^ 
stitution was largely his work. Later he was a mem- 
ber of the Convention, by which he was sent as a com- 
missioner into Flanders. Dumouriez betrayed him to 
the Austrians, and during a long captivity he employed 
his time in translating Epictetus. Exchanged in 1795 
for Madame Royale, daughter of Louis XVI., he re- 
sumed the duties of public archivist, was a member of 
the Five Hundred under the Directory, but, distrusting 
Bonaparte, withdrew from public life on the establish- 
ment of the Consulate. A Roman Catholic Puritan, 
stern, inflexible, and upright, he employed the rest of 
his days, until his death in 1804, in the congenial duty 
of collecting far and near documents relating to French 
history. 

Second only in importance as moulding the Constitu- 
tional policy regarding the church, and first as a sup- 
porter of it, was Gregoire. With Rabaud and Gerle, he 
occupies the foreground of David's famous picture of 



^e THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

the scene in the Tennis Court. In his interesting me- 
moirs he tells but two anecdotes about his youth : one, 
that his mind was formed, though attending a Jesuit 
college, by two ultra-liberal books, Boucher's "De Justa 
Henrici Tertii Abdicatione," and Languet's "Vindiciae 
contra Tyrannos" ; the other that, asking the librarian 
at Nancy for amusing books, he received a stern rebuke 
which he never forgot : "My friend, you have come to 
the wrong place; we furnish only instructive books." 
His earliest important effort as an author was a power- 
ful plea for the rehabilitation of the Jews, which at- 
tracted general attention. A village rector in Lorraine, 
he gained the love and confidence of the people far and 
near, being chosen as a matter of course to represent the 
lower clergy in the States-General. As a deputy he was 
a passionate reformer, being foremost in the struggles 
against primogeniture and all the feudal privileges; 
he seconded Collot-d'Herbois's motion to abolish roy- 
alty, but did not vote for the execution of Louis XVI. 
His work on the Ecclesiastical Committee was largely 
critical, but it was his power of persuasion which or- 
ganized the movement in which so many of the clergy 
accepted the Civil Constitution. Plis character was 
spotless. Sent with two colleagues to arrange for in- 
corporating Savoy into France, he lived with such 
economy that he saved a considerable sum from his 
slender allowance for expenses, and this he returned to 
the treasury, shaking it out of a knot in his handker- 
chief. When on one occasion at Nice his supper was 
two oranges bought for two cents, he expressed joy 
that he cost the republic so little. It was he who gave 
form to the decree against royalty, and he naively re- 
lates that on its adoption he suffered from such an 
excess of joy that he could neither eat nor sleep.^ 
^ Gregoire, Memoires, edited by H. Carnot, 2 vols., Paris, 1857. 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 77 

Gerle the Carthusian was prior of the convent of 
Porte-Sainte-Marie. In the Electoral Assembly of 
Riom he successfully withstood Bishop Bonal in the 
latter's effort to have the cahiers voted by orders, and 
was consequently elected to the States-General. His 
natural leanings were radical, though he seems at first 
to have been a sincere Christian. His erratic course 
will be recounted in another connection. It appears to 
have been caused by a steady degeneration in a brain 
never too strong. He was a puzzled mystic in his asso- 
ciations with the women prophetesses Suzanne La- 
brousse and Catherine Theot. Vague in his ideas and 
foolish in his behavior, he seems to have had some con- 
ception of reform as a return to primitive simplicity. 
But he was never taken too seriously either by himself 
or by others, and died in obscurity. 

A most interesting light is thrown on the condition 
of religious sentiment in the Assembly, at the time of 
appointing the Ecclesiastical Committee, in a connection 
quite different — namely, in the debates on the famous 
Declaration of the Rights of Man. These took place on 
the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of August. The 
preamble itself was a compromise, for an effort was 
made by men who were atheists at heart to exclude 
from it all mention of God, on the plea that the idea 
was either too trite or too universal to need mention. 
In the end the clause ran : "The National Assembly ac- 
knowledges and declares, tinder the auspices of the Su- 
preme Being, that the following rights belong to men 
and citizens." These rights were quickly enumerated 
in the abstract : liberty, property, security, resistance to 
opposition. The younger Mirabeau pleaded that the 
Ten Commandments be inserted as the first paragraphs 
of the new constitution, but this was felt to be superflu- 
ity; each faction had a different conception of the reali- 



78 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

ties underlying the abstractions enumerated. To the 
churchman religious liberty, for example, meant a 
dominant church with toleration for the sects; to the 
moderate reformers it meant absolute equality of 
church and sects; to Mirabeau the very word ''tolera- 
tion" was a tyrannical anachronism — in a free system 
there could be no authority capable of tolerating. 

It might be supposed that the radicals and philoso- 
phers would have been like minded with Mirabeau. 
Not so : they wei-e as intolerant as not even an Ultra- 
montane churchman dared to be, and desired the utter 
abolition not only of ecclesiasticism, but of all reli- 
gion. While the Declaration was the pet device of 
these last, they were compelled to adopt language of 
double meaning. Paragraphs sixteen, seventeen, and 
eighteen of the paper are as follows : "The law not 
being able to reach secret offences, it belongs to reli- 
gion and morality to supply the deficiency. It is 
therefore essential, for the good order of society, that 
both should be respected. The maintenance of re- 
ligion requires a public worship. Respect for public 
worship is then indispensable. Every citizen who does 
not disturb the established worship ought not to be 
molested." Apparently this language gave no legal 
existence to non-Catholics : the word religion was still 
synonymous with Catholicism to the cleric. 

The prelates were satisfied ; the Bishop of Clermont 
quoted Plutarch as a commentary, "A city is in the air 
without religion ; there can be no commonwealth with- 
out worship." Laborde was the only one flatly to de- 
mand entire religious liberty. The debate was brilliant, 
but stormy and ineffectual ; the conservatives, supported 
by the clergy as a whole, never flinched from the posi- 
tion that respect for religion is a duty; the opposition 
asserted that religious liberty was a right. At last it 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL COAIMITTEE 79 

was evident that there must be a postponement of legis- 
lation : all that could be gained was a declaration that 
there was to be no interference with religious opinion 
as long as the order established by law was not violated. 

From first to last, so far, the parish clergy had iden- 
tified themselves with their brethren of the third estate ; 
they were all one in this fundamental position. But 
thereupon began a movement in public opinion which by 
the middle of October was so strong that in the mass 
men no longer drew any distinction between the two 
grades of the clergy. The feeling of hatred for the 
priests was perhaps ill founded, but it existed. It was 
due to the printed reports of the ill-omened banquet of 
October second, given by the Life Guards to the garri- 
son of Versailles, a force which had been steadily 
strengthened and did not conceal its reactionary temper. 
A well-grounded opinion was abroad that the court 
party were intriguing to carry the king to the fortress 
of Metz, whence he might dictate terms. ^ Petitions to 
this effect were secretly handed about and numerously 
signed by the clergy. When on the very heels of this 
intrigue followed the banquet scene in the theatre, 
where king, queen, and court were all enthusiastic 
spectators, during which the commonwealth cockade 
was trampled under foot, at least as reported, and with 
the white cockades of the crown the black ones of the 
church were widely distributed, the fury and rage of 
Paris burst all bounds. Mob violence forced the king 
to Paris. 

Such were the circumstances which led to a general 
reprobation of the whole clergy as alike ecclesiastics at 
heart, and in particular of their deputies. The popu- 
lace began to heap reproach upon them, one and all, ren- 

^ See the letter of d'Estaing, quoted in Thiers's History of 
the French Revolution, I. 97-98. 



8o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

dered their persons unsafe, and as a corollary called for 
the secularization of all the estates upon which ecclesi- 
astical power rested. Then, and among the very men 
who should have endured unto martyrdom, began prep- 
arations for the cowardly desertion which was in itself 
a confession of corruption. The Archbishop of Paris 
(de Juigne), the Bishop of Nantes, and other high 
prelates abandoned their posts and began the exodus 
known to history as the Emigration. The tide of eccle- 
siastical nobles having set forth toward lands hostile to 
France, that of secular ones was soon to turn thither 
also. Panic begets panic. 

The ambiguous language of the Assembly on the sub- 
ject of religious liberty, though it marked the first stage 
of victory for the cause, satisfied nobody, and for that 
reason wrought disaster in the nation. The disinte- 
gration of the clerical forces gave new vigor to the rad- 
icals and emboldened them to dangerous schemes. 
With the anarchists they spurred their sympathizers on 
to disorder ; disorder completed the dismay of the privi- 
leged classes. The finest sentiments had been ex- 
pressed by the sterling men of historic sense — men like 
Laborde, Mirabeau, de Castellane, and Rabaud-Saint- 
]&tienne, who was a son of the famous pastor of Nimes, 
the stern and logical, yet eloquent and persuasive leader 
of the Protestants. Not one of these men was a fanatic, 
and since their memorable utterances not a single idea 
has been added to the standard and convincing pleas for 
religious liberty; it was the Protestant representative of 
numberless martyrs for conscience sake who, joining 
himself to the supporters of Gregoire, pleaded and won 
the cause of the outcast Jews. 

And it was this passion for the broadest liberty which 
likewise animated the Ecclesiastical Committee. In 
his excellent history of its career, Durand-Maillane 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 8i 

faithfully depicts the behavior and sentiments of its 
members.^ Feeling that heroic treatment of the ques- 
tions submitted to them was imperative, they literally 
clasped hands in unity. One and all they had suffered 
under the same tyrannical ''infamy," however widely 
separated the degrees and kinds of tyranny they might 
have experienced ; but they undertook their task in 
charity and harmony. Had the Assembly been like 
minded, the course of history would have run in an- 
other channel. Neither fine words nor a charitable 
temper, however, availed in it; the monarchy was sul- 
len, the privileged classes were either terrified or de- 
fiant, the masses were eager, the radicals were fanatical. 
Step by step the management of affairs slipped from 
the control of the judicious : with painful regularity 
propositions fair in themselves w^ere elaborated into 
extreme theories and urged with defiant haste. The 
enthusiasm of May vanished before the gloomy radical- 
ism of November. 

^ Histoire Apologetique du Comite Ecclesiastique de 
I'Assemblee Nationale, Paris, 1791. 



VI 

SEIZURE AND SALE OF ECCLE- 
SIASTICAL ESTATES 



VI 

SEIZURE AND SALE OF ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 

THAT was a perilous appeal which the Bishop of 
Uzes (de Bethizy) had made on the night of 
August fourth, when he declared that clerical property 
and privilege, having been granted by the nation, could 
be recalled only by the nation : it was but a few days 
later that LaCoste flatly said that ecclesiastical property 
belonged to the nation. On September twenty-sixth, 
de Jesse, deputy of the nobles from Beziers, in discuss- 
ing Necker's proposal for radical measures of financial 
reform, suggested as an immediate resort the superflu- 
ous silver plate of the churches and monasteries, and 
he was supported by the Archbishop of Paris. Both 
recalled that under the canon law it could be sold for 
the poor — a poverty-stricken nation was surely poor. 
For a time they were left almost alone in this posi- 
tion by their angry, contentious colleagues; but three 
days afterward the offer was formally made by the 
archbishop and accepted by the Assembly. The eccle- 
siastical administrators of all ranks throughout all 
France were ordered, in conjunction with the munici- 
palities, to draw up an inventory of the absolutely es- 
sential communion plate, keep it for use, and to send in 
the rest. The estimated value of this contribution was 
about twenty-eight million dollars. Thus, in the ab- 
sence of all coherence among themselves, the clergy 
opened the flood-gates to a stream they must have 

85 



86 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

known would sweep away all that the prelates desired 
to preserve. The attempted diversion of the current 
only deepened the channel. 

Second to none of the economists, not even to his 
masters, Quesnay and Turgot, was Dupont de Ne- 
mours. In a memorable address which he delivered 
on September twenty-fourth he set forth with imposing 
presence and urbane language this thesis : that the 
clergy, having become in process of time the first estate 
of the realm, had established an empire within the state 
which was no sooner strong than it flatly repudiated 
its obligations to the state, and had continued so to dp 
for a period of eighty-three years. Within this period, 
had it contributed in proportion to its means, not as 
the people did, but even so modestly as their fellows 
in privilege, the nobility, had done, the state would 
at the moment be in possession of five hundred 
and forty million dollars as a reserve capital. The 
corporate clergy having been overthrown, the corpo- 
rate state was of course its heir, lawfully entitled not 
merely to its own due, but to the entire heritage. 
What the Roman law would have called a deposit must 
now return to the true owner for the maintenance of 
worship and its ministers ; for the preservation and im- 
provement of public education and charities. In sup- 
port of his position he gave a minute and laboriously 
combined table of the annual deficits for eighty-three 
years past, caused separately and collectively by the 
clergy's withholding its just contributions; his deduc- 
tion he justified by arguments and facts in appalling 
array. Twelve hundred million dollars he showed to 
be the value of this heritage.^ 

^ The table is given entire in teenth century the reHgious as- 

Robinet, I. 156. It is very im- sociations of France have accu- 

portant to note that in the last mulated, according to the offi- 

three quarters of the nine- cial valuation, about one sixth 



ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 87 

With the logic of fierce indignation, the nation was 
now asking not merely whence came this monstrous, 
swollen treasure : but, what was even more concisely 
logical, to what uses were this fortune and its income 
put? As has already been reiterated, though not with 
the damning iteration which was daily and almost 
hourly on the lips and babbling tongues of the myriad 
angry agitators throughout the length and breadth of 
France, the overwhelming mass was shamelessly abused 
for the luxurious living of an overbearing prelacy. 
Where should most of that and all the remainder have 
rightfully been applied ? The answer was plain : to the 
alleviation of sorrow, misery, and suffering throughout 
the realm. De Juigne, Archbishop of Paris, was known 
as the "father of the poor," and there w^ere scores like 
him; their lofty pity covered true hearts as they doled 
their charitable pittances to their humbled and crushed 
but embittered fellow-men who existed in penury. But 
by right, said the radicals, it all belongs to the poor, 
among whom these princely prelates should be the 
poorest. And as for the remnant of ecclesiastical 
moneys, behold the shocking abuses connected with 
their management ! 

It would indeed require a pen dipped in gall and 
pointed with nitre to depict the maladministration of 
the public charities with which the estate of the clergy 
was charged, both spiritually and financially. Seventy 
years earlier Massillon had sternly reminded the eccle- 
siastics of his diocese that, should the givers of their 
ample endowments return to earth, there would be a 

of this sum in real estate alone very large, probably five times 

— viz., two hundred and twenty the value of their landed es- 

millions. What their personal tates. Naturally, such another 

property in chattels and trea- accumulation of mortmains is 

sure may be cannot be discov- thought to menace the stat$" 
ered, but it is thought to be 



88 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

fearful looking for of judgment. Since his day mat- 
ters had gone from bad to worse, and an eye-witness, 
writing two years before the outbreak of the Revolu- 
tion, asserted that the religious establishments con- 
sumed their revenues in luxury, leaving children with- 
out instruction, the sick without consolation, and the 
aged without support. The unparalleled increase of 
population in the environs of the monasteries common 
fame attributed, and correctly, to the licentiousness of 
their inmates. Even after the abolition of money 
tithes, abbots and priors still squabbled with the poor 
over the possession of the tithe sheaf. The complaints 
and instructions (cahiers) of the parishes have only 
one tale to tell — that the upper clergy rolled in wealth 
while the poor were absolutely destitute. Some begged 
the king to confiscate the revenues and apply them to 
their proper sources. The reports on the hospitals beg- 
gar all comparison for a revolting record of misman- 
agement : corpses left indefinitely in beds with the liv- 
ing, fetid wards, filthy operating-rooms, women in 
childbirth crowded by threes and fours on the same 
couch.^ As to the prisons and houses of correction, 
they were simply pest-holes packed with diseased and 
corrupted humanity like negroes in the hold of a slaver, 
wallowing in the infection of their own filth. The 
refuges for the insane were even worse. And all these 
institutions were thronged with fiends in the guise of 
keepers, who jeered and mocked at the misfortunes of 
the miserable objects of their brutality. With even 
so bald an outline of horrors before us, — an outline 
which can be filled in with the darkest shadows and no 
lights, which the pencil of a Rembrandt could shade 
with storm and night without suspicion of invention, 

^ Tuetey, L'Assistance Pub- lution, Introduction, pp. xxxi.- 
lique a Paris pendant la Revo- xxxiii. Also Document No. 39. 



ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 89 

the contemporary official evidence being abundant and 
irrefragable, — can we wonder that the plea of the cler- 
ical deputies against confiscating what they were 
pleased to call ''the goods of the poor" fell upon deaf 
ears and hardened hearts ? 

No one was more familiar with the abuses of cler- 
ical administration than was a certain man of the order. 
He knew^ it root and branch, in all its departments, in- 
cluding that of public charity. Like scores of others, 
he was himself the victim of the infamous system ; but 
he was more bitter, more able, and more determined 
than the rest. This man was the youthful Bishop of 
Autun, already prelate and aristocrat in one, later to be 
known as the Prince Talleyrand-Perigord. Forced, 
against his will and because of a slight lameness, into 
the ecclesiastical career, he chafed under its restraints, 
and found in the Revolution exactly what he needed 
for his emancipation.^ This vindictive personage was 
the mouthpiece of a committee of twelve, appointed 
August twenty-eighth, 1789, to consider how^ security 
was to be found for a loan of sixteen million dollars. 
Some of the clergy had already offered as a free-will 
contribution their own or others' church estates. He 
squarely took the ground of La Coste and Dupont, that 
the nation should take back its own. Planting himself 
firmly and exactly on the ground of Dupont's argu- 
ment, he proposed, on October tenth, that the principle 
which had been decided by the decree abolishing tithes 
be extended to all church property. 

His speech was eloquent, adroit, and, to men in the 
temper of his auditors, convincing. Already, on the 
fifth and sixth of October, the city mob had shown 
its temper, as has been previously related, and in dreary 

*See his statements to Mme. de Remusat, given in her 

Memoires. 



90 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

triumph had forced the king to return from Versailles 
to Paris. It was their power which was in reality 
the sanction behind all of Talleyrand's arguments for 
secularization; the Assembly uneasily felt that the de- 
bate within its walls w^as fast becoming a hollow form. 
Still, the matter was postponed until the thirteenth, 
and on that day Mirabeau, no doubt after one or more 
exhausting sessions with the feeble king and stubborn 
queen, brought in the formal motion that the property 
of the clergy is the property of the nation. Worship, 
he explained, was to be maintained and the salaries of 
priests were to be a free parsonage, with garden at- 
tached, and twelve hundred livres in money. 

It is one of the misfortunes of France, although it 
be, as it is, the very quality which has made her the 
schoolmaster of the ages, that her thinkers can open 
no question for discussion without mounting, stage by 
stage, to the origins. This is really to discard the 
experience of all the ages, and to reduce the practical 
logic of past generations to the abstract and inconclu- 
sive syllogism of one remote from the facts. Al- 
ready the question not merely of ecclesiastical property, 
but of all property, had been hotly debated in news- 
papers and pamphlets. The contest was now trans- 
ferred to oral discussion in the Assembly upon the fa- 
miliar lines — supporters of the old system with reform, 
extreme socialistic, even communistic, declarations by 
the revolutionaries, and, as usual, the mediating party. 

Mirabeau's argument was very specious. Moreover, 
it was perfectly adapted to his audience: not so much 
that which was within the walls of the assembly cham- 
ber as the greater one without the precincts w^hich 
hung on his words. His first argument was drawn 
from Rousseau, and was utterly fallacious. All prop- 
erty is based on the written law of society; what the 



ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 91 

law gave to the clergy it can take from them. This 
perhaps would have some validity in the case of cor- 
porations, which are artificial persons created by the 
law, but it could have none in regard to natural persons, 
whose existence and rights are independent of the state. 
In the last analysis even corporate persons are com- 
posed of individual men, moreover, and the argument 
is partly anarchistic. Mirabeau, however, asserted in 
his second argument that, as opposed to the state, cor- 
porations can have no existence Avhatever ''if they have 
ceased to be useful." This would of course abolish 
the church as well as its property. Finally, pleaded 
the orator, since the clergy no longer exists as an order, 
it cannot own the ecclesiastical estates. This was a 
juristic non-sequitur ; for the church, as such, and the 
clergy, as an order, had owned nothing; the artificial 
persons, known as parishes, dioceses, monasteries, and 
the like, were seized of what had in most cases been 
specific gifts to them. 

Most of the high clericals were weak and talked aside 
from the facts, even suggesting that reforms should 
be made ''canonically." Two of them, however, had 
something real to contribute : The Abbe Maury merci- 
lessly riddled the arguments of the socialists, who made 
all property rights dependent on state support; while 
he likewise proved that the separate pieces of the 
church estate belonged to persons — moral ones, but still 
persons. Camus, the Jansenist, with his precisian se- 
verity, argued that as the state did not make the church 
corporations, it could not destroy them ; the obligations 
of one to the other were reciprocal. The offer of state 
pay he regarded as an insult, for it subordinated the 
church, which, if not superior, was at least historically 
coordinate. Incidentally, Maury showed how infi- 
nitely more dangerous to the state than the accumula- 



92 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

tions of the church were the operations and unholy 
hoards of the stock-jobbers (agiotage), about which 
not one word had been said because these unscrupulous 
robbers meant to escape the just penalty of their crimes 
by outcries against the church.^ 

But prescription is a poor cry at the bar of revolu- 
tion. The lower clergy, represented by Gouttes and 
Juliet, emphasized the degrading effect of wealth on 
the prelates and the consequent loss of influence by the 
whole body. Petion interrupted with a cry that wealth 
had ruined their morals, and there were shouts of 
''Order," but Camus, then in the chair, said he could 
not censure in the rostrum what was printed all abroad. 
The lawyers Thouret, Chasset, and Garat showed that 
an individual might and did have the imprescriptible 
right of property, but not corporations, especially one 
so hostile to the nation, the very law-making power 
which upheld it. Garat went so far along the path 
of Rousseau as to declare that the state could, if it 
chose, abolish Christianity and seek a more moral re- 
ligion. From immemorial times the monarchy had 
controlled in various degrees the ecclesiastical corpora- 
tion ; its successor could, if need be, abolish it and sub- 
stitute another. 

It was on October thirteenth that the weightiest and 
wisest speech of the whole discussion was delivered by 
Malouet.^ His words were those of the conciliator, 
the man of historic instinct struggling to preserve the 
continuity of the old regime with the new. With the 
followers of Rousseau, however, he confused liberty 

^ These debates are given leyrand — a summary never de- 

with sufficient fulness in the livered of what he had already 

Archives Parlementaires, First said, or said later — on p. 649. 
Series, Vol. IX. Mirabeau's ^Archives Parlementaires, IX. 

most important speech wrill be 434. For the text, see Appen- 

found on p. 604; that of Tal- dix I. infra. 



ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 93 

and popular sovereignty, admitting that religion and 
royalty were alike subject to the omnipotence of the 
latter. But the Assembly, he pleaded, had no man- 
date from the general will to deal with so grave a ques- 
tion ; let a commission be appointed to study it. In 
the end all surplusage of property not required for the 
support of worship should be handed to the civil au- 
thorities for the public charities ; since poverty was the 
curse of the state, let the state administer matters for 
its own welfare. Meantime no nominations should be 
made to abbeys or other sinecures ; there should be no 
increase in the monastic establishments. 

The whole argument fell on respectful and receptive 
ears, but it could make no impression on the clamorous 
mob which now both held the king a prisoner in his 
own palace and menaced the Assembly in the hall of the 
archiepiscopal palace where it was then sitting. On the 
twent3^-eighth of October, 1789, a sop was thrown to 
Cerberus in a decree for the temporary suspension of 
religious vows. Two days later the great Mirabeau 
came forth once more and eloquently defended his first 
proposition. On the thirty-first the prelates, in affright, 
offered eighty million dollars toward the national defi- 
cit, and promised to accept thorough reforms. The 
vote on this proposition was postponed for two days, 
and on the second of these, November second, 1789, the 
mob appeared, whether by prearrangement or not is 
unknown, before the hall of the Assembly. As a last 
concession in the interest of unanimity, Mirabeau then 
proposed an amendment. The decree should read not 
that church property is national property, but "is at the 
disposal of the nation," This was carried by a major- 
ity of five hundred and sixty-eight to three hundred 
and forty-six ; over two hundred were absent, and forty 
abstained from voting. 



94 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

It was John Huss who began the agitation for trans- 
ferring such ecclesiastical property as was in the shape 
of landed domains to the control of civil power, and the 
Reformation on its secular side was the process where- 
by the transfer was effected. The same proposition 
was early enforced in France by a pamphlet published 
in 1 64 1, one copy of which is still extant in the Musee 
Carnavalet of Paris; its author was an otherwise ob- 
scure man, Frangois Paulmier. The next statement 
of the principle is found in the anonymous volume en- 
titled "Autorite des Rois," written and circulated in 
the highest circles soon after the brochure of Paulmier, 
but not printed and published until a century later. It 
is a compendium, by a brilliant jurist, of the theory 
and practice of the crown in this momentous matter. 
Property acquired under civil regulations, runs the ar- 
gument, can be alienated only likewise, and is held 
subject to the charges laid by the state; and for the 
expenses of the state the sovereign can supply his 
wants, as, for example, the public defense. This was 
the tradition of the old monarchy beyond a peradven- 
ture, and was published as such by Machault in 1749. 
The Assembly therefore was in its heroic measure fully 
within the limits of the time-honored claims of the 
civil power regarding church property, even though its 
action was based on doctrines unknown to the Roman 
law as set forth by the jurists of Louis XIV. In pro- 
viding salaries for those who would otherwise suffer 
by its course it unfortunately failed to explain its rea- 
sons, and the conservatives claimed that in thus paying 
for church services it had merely entered into a new 
compact with an organization not abolished, but con- 
tinued on a new basis. This was not true, as was very 
quickly proved. 

If the x\ssembly acted cautiously and historically in 



ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 95 

secularizing the ecclesiastical estates, it likewise acted 
moderately and wisely, though rapidly and under com- 
pulsion, in the use it made of them. In judging we 
must recollect that the spectre of national bankruptcy 
was ever in the background. Its demands were inces- 
sant and imperative. The first step in meeting them was 
to take possession. On November seventh Talleyrand 
proposed that seals be placed on the safes in which were 
deposited monastic titles ; inventories of them were then 
ordered to be taken ; on December fourth it was moved 
that the Assembly proceed to the sale of both royal 
and ecclesiastical domains; on December twentieth the 
proposition Avas voted; on March sixteenth, 1790, the 
commune of Paris made an offer for forty million dol- 
lars' worth. Thus the process was considerately in- 
augurated, but the deed was done, and it thoroughly 
aroused the angry passions of the great ecclesiastics. 

This exasperation of a powerful class was unfortu- 
nate. It has been claimed that it was unnecessary. 
Possibly this is true. The interdiction of all new foun- 
dations and of any increase to those still existing, 
together with a process of consolidation, would have 
furnished six million dollars at once, with a prospec- 
tive hundred and twenty more in the immediate future, 
according to Malouet and his reforming supporters, 
men like the Archbishop of Aix. And, further, the 
royal or civil foundations might have been secularized, 
leaving those due to private bounty untouched — such, 
for example, as exist in our own country. But Rous- 
seauism was all abroad, and Rousseauism forbade such 
a course ; the thought of a free church and a free state 
was as abhorrent to its devotees as it was to those of 
the scandalous infamy now doomed and already dis- 
appearing. The financiers secured, on December tw^en- 
tieth, the right to sell both ecclesiastical and royal do- 



96 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

mains to the extent of eighty milHons of dollars as 
security for the promissory notes bearing five per cent, 
interest — the notorious assignats which in the end 
wrought havoc to the republican finances. 

It is not difficult at this distance of time and place 
to see the fatal errors of the Assembly. Its initial in- 
tentions appear to have been good, but good inten- 
tions without wisdom in conduct are the kind with 
which hell is paved. Institutions which have been the 
growth of ages, whether political or ecclesiastical, may 
not be handled like the abstract factors of a mathe- 
matical problem ; if they are to be reformed, it must be 
by a slow process of tentative changes based neither on 
logic nor on necessity nor on expediency alone, al- 
though with due regard to the element of absolute 
right vv/^hich must be continuously operative. The only 
possible reformer, moreover, is the friendly one; the 
enemies of an institution can become only radical revo- 
lutionaries when they begin to change it, our human 
nature being weak and selfish as it is. The great mem- 
bers of the Assembly were not friendly, as we have seen ; 
many of the most adroit were devotees of the system 
of natural religion expounded by Rousseau in his 
Emile; between them and believers in a revealed re- 
ligion there could be no peace, not even a truce. One 
and all the various sets of reformers could deal moder- 
ately, as in a sense they did, with the political hierarchy. 
For this the reason is plain : as far as knowledge goes 
there was not far and near in France a handful of radi- 
cal democrats at the outbreak of the Revolution. But 
moderation in regard to the ecclesiastical hierarchy was 
almost impossible because there were scores and hun- 
dreds of embittered foes — Gallicans, Jansenists, Pro- 
testants, Deists, and Atheists. It was natural that 
men conservative in politics should act as such within 



ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 97 

that sphere, and that the same men, radical in church 
matters, should be ruthless, as they were, in deal- 
ing with the clergy and the ecclesiastical domains. 
It was religious radicalism confronted by a haughty, 
tactless ecclesiasticism allied with monarchy which in 
no extended time created the faction of radical demo- 
crats in politics. In this quick genesis appeared all 
the elements which steadily continued to undermine the 
whole structure of French society, fair as the exterior 
remained, until at the ripe but unexpected moment it 
crumbled into dust, to the dismay of the civilized 
universe. 



VII 

PRELUDE TO THE CIVIL CONSTI- 
TUTION OF THE CLERGY 



LofC. 



VII 

PRELUDE TO THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF 
THE CLERGY 

FEW things happen in France at any time without 
the exhibition of a powerful dramatic element. 
Least of all could the climax of an attempted compro- 
mise between God and Belial be reached in a seething 
revolutionary epoch without a display of fiery passion. 
No more thrilling scene was ever unfolded on the floor 
of a legislative body than that which was now to be 
caused by the motion of Dom Gerle. Strange com- 
pound as he was of Carthusian monk and radical revo- 
lutionary, he believed himself to be taking a step of sim- 
ple justice when he proposed his resolution. But his 
friar's garb was like a theatrical costume in that modern 
setting; the accents of his voice, the attitude he struck, 
and the well-known character of the man were all of a 
histrionic quality. The turmoil which ensued, the fierce 
and angry cries of the radicals, the wild enthusiasm of 
the conservatives, the hurried consultations, the dismay 
of the cautious, the swift resolves, the savage gestur- 
ings, the dissolution of the Assembly into a mob, and 
the final disruption of the conservative elements — 
these were of the highest dramatic force, because they 
marked the beginning of a new process, the rise of a 
determined democracy, as grim in its political radical- 
ism as it already was in its ecclesiastical iconoclasm. 



102 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

The clergy, occupied exclusively with the preserva- 
tion of their privilege, had made a fatal mistake in 
neither considering nor presenting what became imper- 
ative after the abolition of tithes, a constructive plan 
for the reform of ecclesiastical finances. The sac- 
rifice of the communion plate was in a sense a free-will 
gift. Simultaneously with this voluntary contribution 
there arose discussion on the question of paper money. 
Mirabeau had then implored further patriotic gifts as a 
temporary resource. The next step was the declara- 
tion that ecclesiastical property was at the disposal of 
the nation. Meantime the emission of paper money 
continued to be a topic of discussion throughout 
France. Then on December fourth Talleyrand pro- 
posed that money obtained from sales of the royal and 
church domains be applied toward securing the national 
debt. Thereupon this proposition became the topic 
most widely discussed within and without the Assem- 
bly. On the eighteenth Treilhard supported Talley- 
rand's proposition in the most powerful speech of an 
epochal debate. And thereupon ensued the measures 
of alienation and seizure recounted for the sake of con- 
tinuity in the last chapter. 

Those measures were in reality precipitated by the 
startling occurrences of the nineteenth, unforeseen 
events which brought above the horizon a question hith- 
erto obscured. Although the prelates shared the pub- 
lic disesteem as members of the aristocracy, the cures 
too, strangely enough as it seemed to them, were 
now held in no consideration. Having shown their 
faith by taking the earliest measures of relief for the 
starving poor of city and country, they had laid aside 
all remnants of medisevalism except their garb, had 
been eager to abandon the tithes, to sacrifice all per- 
quisites, such, for example, as the surplice fees (cas- 
ual), had identified themselves with the third estate, 



CIVIL CONSTITUTION 103 

had steadily supported the proposition that the nation 
was bound to supervise the ecclesiastical estates with 
a view to seeing the revenues reach the aims for which 
they had been destined. Yet they met with the very 
harshest treatment on the streets and in public places, 
wherever they came under the observation of the Paris 
populace. Why? Because they could not conscien- 
tiously assert that church property was national prop- 
erty, and would not. Nor as a class could they support 
the view taken in the act of November second, that 
ecclesiastical property ''is at the disposal of the nation." 
The people began to ask what really were the funda- 
mental facts of the discussion. Treilhard found the 
test of all property in the power of its holder to alienate 
it, and that crucial act the church could not perform 
with what it claimed to possess. The deduction seemed 
clear to the meanest mind and the whole argument was 
to the masses unanswerable. They grew, therefore, 
as their want increased, more and more bitter against 
those who would not yield to the force of conviction 
which they themselves felt. 

This pressure explains as nothing else can what hap- 
pened on December nineteenth. On that day Treilhard 
presented what purported to be the first report of the 
Ecclesiastical Committee, a paper outlining a plan of 
work, and recommending as the first step to be taken the 
entire abolition of religious vows. Some of the founda- 
tions already existing were to be maintained as places of 
refuge for those desiring to continue the monastic life. 
A moderate provision in money was to be made for the 
men and women who, having been devoted to the re- 
ligious life of the cloister, now wished to reenter the 
world. The chairman of the committee, the Bishop of 
Clermont, solemnly declared that he knew nothing 
whatever of the report presented, that he had never at- 
tended a single meeting of the committee where such 



104 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

proposals were offered, and was a stranger to what was 
now laid before the Assembly in its name — viz., the en- 
tire document with all its proposals. Thereupon there 
was no outburst of honest indignation as might have 
been expected, but instead, with little or no disapproval, 
the entire proposition was on the twentieth made a law. 
There is no indication that there was any chicane or 
fraud in connection with the report except the unsup- 
ported statement of a single man — a man who had 
continuously denounced, in the prelatical interest, all 
measures to secure by means of inventories accurate 
knowledge as to the incomes of the ecclesiastical bene- 
ficiaries.^ So deep-seated was the distrust of him and 
his class, that coincident with the enactment of the law 
which virtually abolished convents and nunneries, prep- 
aration was made for remodelling the committee. Of 
this mention has already been made; it was accom- 
plished on February seventh, 1790, the result being to 
make it more liberal, in fact almost radical. On Feb- 
ruary thirteenth the course recommended in the report 
as presented by Treilhard was finally adopted by the 
Assembly. The first great sale of what had been des- 
ignated royal and ecclesiastical lands was therefore a 
sale largely of commendam properties. It was made to 
the commune of Paris a month later. The administra- 
tive measures taken to consummate this important mea- 
sure brought forward the secular question. Both were 
carefully debated, and when finally settled the "mobili- 
zation of church lands," as it was called, was extended 
to those of the crown, and thereupon the first issue of 
paper money was made on the security of a national 
estate composed of both. 

^ Ditrand-Maillane, Histoire heard him in the committee 

Apologetique, p. 31. The au- approve the reform of monastic 

thor flatly contradicts the as- establishments, even to the con- 

sertions of the bishop. He had fiscation of their estates. 



CIVIL CONSTITUTION 105 

All sensible Frenchmen had long understood that 
the involution of ecclesiastical affairs with the national 
finance was such that a wise reticence on disputed and 
tender points of religion was the only chance of pre- 
serving the essentials. The treatment of the monastic 
estates should have further enforced the sagacity of 
this view. But again the fuse of the revolutionary 
bomb was lighted by the churchmen themselves. They 
were now profoundly alarmed. It could no longer be 
a question of privilege: it was something truly vital 
that was in the balance — viz., whether or not there was 
to be any state church at all in France; and if so, was 
it to be a Roman church? The very idea created a 
panic, and when monasticism was denounced on the 
floor as a form of civil suicide, the clerics felt the foun- 
dations trembling beneath them. This language 
seemed profane. It was in such a moment of despair 
that, wdth unconsidered haste, on February seventh, 
1790, the Bishop of Nancy called on the Assembly to 
declare Roman Catholicism the religion of the state and 
nation. A strong majority asserted its devotion to the 
state, but evaded the implied religious test by voting the 
previous question. Still another element of terror 
struck down the hearts of the clergy — viz., the new 
attitude of the Assembly toward the Protestants. No 
longer regarded with mere toleration, they were at last 
in the forefront; on March tenth Rabaud St.-:£tienne, 
son of the proscribed Protestant pastor of Nimes, suc- 
ceeded Montesquiou as chairman of the Assembly; as 
he wrote to his father in pardonable exultation, 'The 
president of the Constituent [Assembly] is at your 
feet." 1 

^Rabaud was noted for his beau. He was a prime mover 

refinement, learning, and elo- in the agitation which secured 

quence. For the latter gift the edict of tolerance. It is 

many compared him withMira- interesting to note that the 



io6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ' 

These were the successive steps which led up to the 
crisis. The Roman Church had been divorced from 
the French nation. The machinery of government 
had stripped it first of its tithes and now of its estates. 
The hierarchy and the organization still existed, and an 
implied contract had been made which was to assure 
the support of worship. But what was the status of 
Roman Catholicism as a religion? Was it henceforth 
to be tolerated as one of several sects, all alike indiffer- 
ent to representatives of the people governing now by 
the rule of a majority hostile not merely to ecclesi- 
asticism, but to the Catholic religion itself — a majority 
which had chosen a Protestant to preside at the coun- 
cils of the nation ? On the thirteenth the Abbe Montes- 
quiou, struggling in vain to impress a determined au- 
dience against its will, left the desk with a despairing 
appeal for the divine protection. His words were a 
wail which profoundly moved many hearts. The su- 
perserviceable Carthusian, Dom Gerle, was completely 
overcome and outraged. He leaped to his feet and, 
denouncing the charges of his predecessor against the 
Ecclesiastical Committee as a vile calumny, moved that 
inproof of his assertion the Assembly decree the Roman 
Catholic Church the dominant legal church of France. 
It was then that pandemonium broke loose. Conser- 
vatives cheered the proposition as coming from an 
advanced opponent; the moderates and radicals alike 

watchword proposed by him desired a monarchy with the 
for the French Revolution was suspensive veto and a single 
"Liberty, Equality, Property," a legislative chamber. He was 
cry almost identical with that delegate for Nimes in the As- 
heard in England during the sembly, and for Aube in the 
revolution of 1688. This was Convention. His special inter- 
in July, 1789; in August his ests were education and the 
was the most eloquent of the militia. He voted -for the ban- 
speeches supporting Castel- ishment of Louis XVL, and 
lane's motion, the refrain being proposed the public-school law. 
"not tolerance, but liberty." He 



CIVIL CONSTITUTION 107 

protested, the latter in sneering insincerity, that no 
such platitude need be asserted. Marshalling all their 
sympathizers, the reformers forced an adjournment.^ 

The night was one of turmoil. The palace of the 
Tuileries was closed, its guards were redoubled, and 
the radical press breathed fire and slaughter against all 
clericals. The Catholics discussed and canvassed, the 
Jacobins fiercely denounced Dom Gerle, and, overawing 
him by fierce argument, secured his promise to withdraw 
the motion. Next morning terrific disputes began at 
once. From the tactical standpoint it was bad taste for 
Montesquiou to have taken the attitude of sentimental- 
ity under persecution, but it was fatal for Gerle to have 
forced the issue as he did. There could now be but one 
question, "Should the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman 
religion dominate, or should it be subjugated and re- 
duced to the plane of a sect?" Mirabeau struggled to 
hold the middle course ; but, swearing at first to die as a 
martyr unless Catholicism were declared the national 
religion, he recoiled to almost the antipodal extreme be- 
fore an appeal to the same end which was made by a 
deputy and based — shocking plea! — on the oath of 
Louis XIV. taken on January twenty-fifth, 1675, ^ cen- 
tury before ! This was suicidal folly. Mirabeau was 
furious. With an awe-inspiring gesture the leonine 
orator pointed from the tribune at a window, easily 
visible, whence, he reminded his audience, another king, 
desiring to mingle temporal with spiritual interests, had 
signalled by the discharge of an arquebus for the mas- 
sacre of Saint Bartholomew. 

Still his meaning was plain. Known to be daily 
in consultation with the court, he clearly implied that 

^ De Pressense, The Church and shall forever remain the 

and the French Revolution, religion of the nation, and that 

Engl. Trans, by Stroyan, p. its worship shall alone be au- 

109; Gerle's motion was, "is thorized." 



io8 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

while others had been faithless, and while therefore 
the historic argument was worthless, Louis XVL was 
a man who could be trusted not to commingle spir- 
itualities and temporalities, a possibility in which the 
party of the Revolution would not believe. Mirabeau 
was hooted down. Another and extreme conservative 
called attention to the presence of the guards as a mea- 
sure of intimidation, a menace to free discussion; but 
he asserted that he himself was not awed — not he. 
There were roars of laughter. Lafayette was ap- 
plauded to the echo when he asseverated the devotion 
of his guardsmen to the Assembly; they would shed 
the last drop of their blood to see its decrees executed, 
he declared. And so with intermingled hoots, cheers, 
and laughter was taken a momentous step. The As- 
sembly refused to vote Catholicism the national re- 
ligion. 

After hours of excited talk the majority finally suc- 
ceeded, therefore, in passing a substitute to Gerle's mo- 
tion. It was offered by Rochefoucauld. "The National 
Assembly, considering that it neither has nor can have 
any power over consciences and religious opinions, that 
the majesty of religion and the profound respect which 
is due to it do not permit it to become the subject of 
deliberation; considering, further, that the attachment 
of the National Assembly to the Catholic, Apostolic, 
and Roman worship should not be put in doubt at the 
very moment when this worship is about to be placed 
by it in the first class of the public expenses, and when 
by a unanimous movement it has proved its respect in 
the only way which could be suitable to the character of 
the National Assembly, has decreed, and does decreie, 
that it neither can nor ought to deliberate on the motion 
proposed, and that it is about to resume the order of the 
day concerning the church domains." 



CIVIL CONSTITUTION 109 

The high clericals, thirty-three bishops and twenty- 
six abbots and canons, then left the hall; with them 
went seventy-nine parish priests. Organizing a meet- 
ing, they at once drew up a passionate address and pro- 
test.^ They asserted in it that under instructions they 
had come to Versailles for the purpose of securing as 
an article of the constitution "a. declaration that the 
Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion is the religion 
of the state, and the only one wdiich ought in this king- 
dom to enjoy the solemnity of public worship." Their 
attempts having been fruitless and liberty of speech 
having been denied them, they now despaired of suc- 
cess and wished so to inform their constituents. After 
the protest they resumed their seats, but in the main 
kept silence. A single proposition was timidly put 
forward by one of the archbishops (Boisgelin), that 
the clergy advance eighty million dollars and be per- 
mitted to retain control of the remaining ecclesiastical 
funds. But the idea could not even get a hearing. The 
Assembly then went forward with its work. On April 
fourteenth the fateful decree was finally passed; the 
property "at the disposal of the nation" was assigned 
to the civil authorities of the departments; tithes were 
to cease after January first, 1791 ; salaries w^ere to be 
paid to the clergy in money; relief was voted to the 
poor and to those who really suffered in the suppres- 
sion of the monasteries. 

Something should be said in passing, if only a word, 
concerning the lofty aspirations of the Assembly in 
dealing with poverty; for they display its enlighten- 
ment and intelligence as much as any of its enactments. 
The committee declared the basis of general well-being 

* For the scenes of this de- Ferrieres, Memoires, Livre V. 
bate, see the Moniteur for 221 ; Hesmivy d'Auribeau, Ex- 
April, 1790; Buchez et Roux, trait des Memoires, I. 181. 
Histoire Parlementaire, V, 345 ; 



no THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

to be the soil, and since agriculture had suffered be- 
yond measure in the extravagant appropriation of land 
to pleasure, while at the same time undue pressure 
was brought to bear for the increase of population as 
a military resource, their first effort must be to attract 
the four or five millions of worthy poor toward the 
fields. Professional paupers, sedentary and vagrant, 
must be forced to work under severe penalties. The 
first class of worthy poor, abandoned children or found- 
lings, must be removed from the vast houses of refuge, 
which were nothing more or less than training schools 
of pauperism. Adults must be stimulated to exertion 
by the prospect of possession, and to this end the newly 
acquired domains of the state should be sold in very 
small parcels under the easiest conditions. These mea- 
sures taken, a vast scheme of relief for the infirm and 
aged must be devised,- and a thorough reform of abuses 
in hospitals and prisons must be undertaken.^ Severe 
laws against begging must be enacted, the sedentary 
paupers must be kept under surveillance and vagrants 
confined in houses of correction, the entire system to 
be administered with a view to reforming the inmates. 
Every provision must be made to prevent the contagion 
of vice as much as the contagion of disease. 

The committee was just as strong practically as 
theoretically. Commissions of investigation probed 
ruthlessly every sore, and finding that about one mil- 
lion — almost a twentieth — of the population required 
aid, either as sick, infirm, aged, or children, as pau- 
pers able to work and as beggars and vagabonds, they 
appropriated about eleven million dollars from the 
revenues of the new domains for hospitals, for the 
helpless, for shops to train paupers into habits of work, 

^ The most important docu- net, Mouvement Religieux, I., 
ments may be found in Robi- pp. 220 et seqq. 



CIVIL CONSTITUTION in 

for the repression of begging, and for administration. 
Two millions per annum were set aside as a reserve. 
The work was laborious and slow, but in the end it 
was thoroughly done. The foundation thus laid, the 
structure of the modern, scientific, and for the most 
part admirable system of public charities has been 
growing on the same lines for more than a century. 

The destruction of the prelatical aristocracy in the 
interest of the poor marks a double social process, a 
levelling down and a levelling up. It is remarkable as 
a revolutionary phase that during this very period 
the third estate was busy in the effort to make itself a 
privileged class, or at least to confirm itself as such. 
Amid the contradictions of thought and conduct which 
characterize the time, and probably because of them, 
arose the new and most modern political concept — a 
concept that was not inaugurated, but certainly was 
confirmed by the next move of the Assembly in dealing 
with the ecclesiastical question, the idea of manhood 
suffrage. The third estate was, at the beginning of 
the Revolution, what Sieyes declared it to be — the na- 
tion. Numerically considered, about one thirtieth of 
the population was not comprised within it. Morally, 
however, its power was exerted by comparatively few, 
those technically known as the burghers — that is, a cer- 
tain number of landed proprietors and farmers, all the 
professional classes, the merchants and manufacturers. 
The conception of equality was very clear to these, in 
the sense that they were equal to those above them; 
but they never dreamed, nor even did Rousseau im- 
agine, the doctrine of an equality comprising the great 
masses who worked with their hands for their daily 
bread and possessed no accumulated capital whatever. 
These latter proletarians did not themselves conceive 
that they could possess equal rights, for they knew they 



112 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

had not equal responsibilities. The municipal revolu- 
tion consequent to the fall of the Bastille was inaugu- 
rated by the wealthy bourgeoisie, who furnished the 
intellectual power, while the proletarians lent the work 
of their hands and carried it to a successful completion. 

Accordingly no amazement was expressed, and but 
a very mild opposition was made, to the principle laid 
down almost immediately by Sieyes in 1789, that there 
were two classes of rights, natural and civil, or, as he 
designated them, active and passive. Women, chil- 
dren, foreigners, in short all who contributed nothing to 
the corporate funds of the state, possessed merely civil 
or passive rights; equality of all rights existed only 
among active citizens, they alone had political rights, 
the right to exercise the suffrage. After long debates, 
the Assembly, accepting this theory, enacted on Decem- 
ber twenty-second, 1789, that no person could vote ex- 
cept a Frenchman twenty-five years old, domiciled in 
the voting district for a year, paying a direct tax worth 
three days' wages, and who was not a hired servant. 
The question of three days' wages at once presented 
difficulties, and they were met by adopting a maximum 
of twenty sous a day, a modification which tended to 
enlarge the suffrage considerably. Some exceptions to 
the law were likewise made, such as national guards 
who had served at their own expense, and priests. 

As to who should be eligible for election the debate 
was again long and vigorous, bringing to light a more 
powerful and numerous body of men ready to exhibit 
the democratic temper than the other measure had done. 
It was, however, easily settled that for all offices up to 
that of membership in the municipal assemblies the can- 
didate should pay a direct tax of ten days' wages. For 
membership in the National Assembly the committee 
proposed not that the candidate should be a landed pro- 



CIVIL CONSTITUTION 113 

prietor as many urged, but that he should pay a land 
tax in some form worth a silver mark, or four ounces 
of silver. This was voted only after very considerable 
opposition, and in the debate the radicals began to utter 
strong democratic sentiments. They were met, how- 
ever, by overpowering expressions of dissent, and the 
first revolutionary constitution was based on a suffrage 
limited according to the ideas of the well-to-do bur- 
ghers. 

But the plan could not be made to work. Before it 
was put into operation many of the most enlightened 
and moderate leaders of opinion changed their minds, 
and many admirable remonstrances were read before 
one and another of the municipal assemblies, notably 
one written by Condorcet and sent up to the National 
Assembly by the Paris commune. Opposition was 
particularly strong in the capital because many of the 
high-class artisans paid not a direct, but only a cap- 
itation tax. The scheme was first put into operation 
elsewhere, and in many of the villages it was found 
that there were not enough "eligibles" to fill the offices. 
Some of the communes evaded the provisions of the law^ 
in order to secure a local government, and in Marseilles 
the voting-lists were prepared without any regard to it. 
In some of the reported cases there is an element of ab- 
surdity, ahvays fatal in the French mind to any device ; 
for example, a village surgeon refused to educate his 
boy for his own profession, since the cost would so re- 
duce his means as to render the practitioner himself in- 
eligible for office. Yet it is likely that the people of the 
departments would have proved docile. The overthrow 
of the system came when Paris saw it in operation. 
Under the leadership of Marat was organized the re- 
sistance to its aristocratic inequalities, and by June, 
1790, there was a numerous party favoring universal 



114 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

suffrage. This, with the situation in which the Pro- 
testants and others outside the fold of the Roman 
Church now found themselves, created a movement of 
public opinion which determined the next step taken 
by the Assembly with regard to the clergy of the Cath- 
olic Church.^ 

It is not possible to read the hearts of men, but cer- 
tainly one of the most important reasons for rejecting 
the motion of Dom Gerle was, that ever since the open- 
ing sessions of the Assembly partial measures, not 
merely of tolerance but of liberty, had been adopted 
one by one with reference to the considerable body of 
French dissenters, who had so long been under the ban 
of allied church and state. Down to the Edict of 
Toleration the exercise of Protestant worship was ut- 
terly proscribed throughout France. After the revo- 
cation of the Edict of Nantes, the able and energetic 
fled to bestow the benison of their character, skill, and 
refinement upon other lands ; of the few who remained 
the feeble became delirious and fanatical enthusiasts, 
and the timid outwardly conformed. But in 171 5, 
shortly before the death of Louis XIV., began the won- 
derful movement, under Antoine Court, which re- 
strained fanaticism, but infused courage into the faint- 
hearted. It was a serious revival, with the manifest 
result of gathering the scattered remnant into conven- 
ticles and organizing them under elders, pastors, and 
presbyteries. Although worship was conducted under 
incredible difliculties, often in remote groves, caves, or 
deserted houses, under the safeguard of unarmed sen- 
tinels, yet organization was maintained, marriages 
were celebrated, funerals were decently conducted, and 
the sacraments were administered with much regu- 

^ For a concise account o£ the Politique de la Revolution 
debates, see Aulard, Histoire Frangaise, pp. 60 et seqq. 



CIVIL CONSTITUTION 115 

larity. The legality of the marriages and the question 
of property succession soon came before the parlc- 
ments or courts of law. Every political device and 
legal fiction v^as employed, with philanthropic zeal and 
ingenuity, to avoid cognizance of the fact that there 
was a Protestant Church in France. But the fact was 
stubborn, and too frequent recourse was had to atro- 
cious persecution for repression. This was done in 
obedience to the shocking edict of 1724, which con- 
demned pastors to death, male Protestants to the gal- 
leys, women to imprisonment for life, all these and 
many other frightful penalties to be accompanied by 
confiscation of property. 

Persecution reached its height about 1755. There- 
after intelligent public opinion asserted itself more and 
more, until a certain degree of toleration became essen- 
tial. It was this which finally found expression in the 
edict of 1787, a beneficent measure which enabled the 
scattered congregations to meet, still in private but in 
security, and the organization to do its work without 
fear except from the influences of a social ostracism 
more or less complete. The Protestants in Paris had 
met irregularly in the chapels of the embassies from 
Protestant lands, notably that of Holland, in which 
there was a regular chaplain, an able man whose name 
was Marron. Under him, with the active assistance 
of Rabaud St.-]&tienne, a congregation was at once or- 
ganized. It contained many men of mark; some of 
them, like Cambon, Jean-Bon, Saint- Andre, Lombard- 
Lachaux, and Voulland, followed the fortunes of the 
republic to the end ; others, like Claviere, Barnave, La- 
source, Servieres de la Lozere, Bernard de St.-Affrique, 
Johannot, and Rabaud himself, having enlisted for re- 
form and not for revolution, withdrew when their ends 
were gained. Marat was not a member, although he 



ii6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

was of Protestant origin and had lived for some time in 
Edinburgh; he, with his successor Robespierre, repre- 
sented the type of fanatical and extreme Calvinistic 
mind, which so easily identified itself with the authori- 
tarian tyranny of Rousseauism. It was not until June 
seventh, 1789, however, when the Revolution was 
launched, that the Protestants were permitted to rent a 
public hall and hold public services. From that mo- 
ment, with a single interruption to be described later, 
they have steadily increased in numbers and have been 
in the enjoyment of complete religious liberty. On 
December twenty-first, 1789, the deputy Brunet de 
Latuque proposed that all ''non- Catholics" be eligible 
for all public duties and offices like other citizens ; and 
on the twenty-fourth this was voted as far as the Prot- 
estants were concerned. And immediately, as we have 
seen, they came to the very forefront ; their views were 
heard with respect, their administrative abilities were 
recognized, and they were employed in the highest 
public offices.^ 

But the Jews were non-Catholics too, as the unfor- 
tunate phrase ran, and bigotry began its work the 
moment liberty for all forms of worship was demanded. 
Even Mirabeau would not support the sweeping posi- 
tion taken by Gregoire and other apostles of the Jews 
when by a final effort he secured the emancipation of 
the Protestants. But a vigorous agitation without, 
both in Paris and in the departments, made itself 
strongly felt within the hall of the Assembly, and 
finally the Paris commune made a formal representa- 
tion in behalf of the Paris Jews. After some hesitancy 
the Assembly, on January twenty-eighth, 1790, ex- 
tended the law of December twenty-fourth to such of 
the Sephardim Jews, known as Portuguese, Spanish, or 
^ De Felice, Histoire des Protestants de France, p. 549. 



CIVIL CONSTITUTION 117 

Avignon Jews, as had been born in France. These had 
long been distinguished as having settled habits, recog- 
nized names, and trustworthy characters. The Asch- 
kenazim Jews, the German Jews of Alsace-Lorraine and 
the northeast generally, were types of what a long and 
brutal persecution makes out of men. They were sl}^ 
bore no family names, concealed their occupations of 
peddling and money-lending, and evaded the grasp of 
the law by easy migration back and forth across the 
frontier. It was some years before race hatred and 
prejudice were calmed and they obtained any recogni- 
tion whatsoever ; they were not actually brought under 
the regulations or within the pale of civilized life until 
Napoleon laid his heavy hand upon them. 

But a year after the emancipation of the Huguenots, 
on December twenty- fourth, 1790, the Lutheran and 
Swiss Protestants living within the borders of France 
received the same rights as the Calvinistic, native Pro- 
testants had received — the rights, namely, of complete 
citizenship. In a sense the Protestants were better 
treated than other Christians, their ecclesiastical prop- 
erty being in a measure exempted from the laws con- 
cerning that of Catholics. It seems like a curiosity of 
history that simultaneously with the removal of the ban 
from French Protestants in December, 1789, French 
comedians for the first time received civil and political 
rights. So, too, did all men of color residing in 
France, but not those of the colonies. 

These events may be considered as having formed 
both the prelude and the immediate cause of the next 
step taken by the Assembly in dealing with ecclesiastical 
affairs. In abolishing the tithes and secularizing the 
church estates, they confiscated the entire ecclesiastical 
temporality. Forced thus into the dilemma of either 
state or voluntary support for worship, they obeyed a 



ii8 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

blind instinct and chose the former. But the struggle 
was so severe that every element of aristocratic privi- 
lege, however slight, was mercilessly exposed to public 
view and criticised without pity. The new idea of 
equality among men, without regard to estate or con- 
dition, began to work powerfully in all classes, creating 
a political democracy, modifying the views of all Chris- 
tians except the Ultramontanes, and thus opening the 
way for an effort at ecclesiastical democracy. 



VIII 

THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF 
THE CLERGY 



VIII 

THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY ^ 

ALTHOUGH there was at bottom a radical contra- 
Jr\ diction between the theories of a secular aristoc- 
racy and an ecclesiastical hierarchy, the one being 
based on birth and privilege, the other on choice and 
ability, yet they had long been identified in France, as 
we have seen, by the selection of secular aristocrats for 
the upper grades of the religious hierarchy. This fact 
had utterly confused the inherent and basic distinction 
between the two as far as the masses of the people were 
concerned. The swift march of the nation toward po- 
litical democracy, it might be supposed, should have 
awakened public opinion to the necessity of applying 
the same principles in the solution of the church ques- 
tion; and this the Ecclesiastical Committee earnestly, 
honestly desired to accomplish. It is well to recall, as 
somewhat mitigating the blame of its failure, a remark- 
able historical parallel. By a due consideration of its 
attitude of mind and its efforts we may fairly judge 
the members, and thereby alone. 

The representative bodies then familiar to the civil- 
ized world were the American Congress and the Eng- 
lish Parliament. The French delegates did not doubt 
that, like the English Houses and like the Conti- 

^ The references for this mentaires, the Moniteur, and 
chapter are the debates as the Histoire Parlementaire. 
given in the Archives Parle- 

121 



122 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

nental Congress, their own Assembly was a truly con- 
stituent sovereign body — in legal theory, the French 
nation. They were justified in their opinion, for so 
far in history no convention parliament had sat whose 
credentials entitled it to be considered more truly na- 
tional and representative. Now, as was well known, 
the Long Parliament, under the influence of Selden, 
had formed an ecclesiastical establishment, Presbyte- 
rian in all but name, completely subordinate to the secu- 
lar power. The Convention Parliament which restored 
Charles 11. to the throne, though royalist out and out, 
had no thought of restoring an aristocratic prelacy: 
that which made William and Mary joint sovereigns 
of the three kingdoms had subordinated the established 
churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland to the 
state. The various Constitutional conventions of the 
United States, federal and State, had gravitated to- 
ward the most extreme secular view of temporal su- 
premac}^ regarding all religious corporations as in no 
respect different under the law from those of a volun- 
tary secular nature. Was it to be expected that a su- 
preme, active Assembly like that of France would do 
less or take a less advanced position? 

True, the French thought of the eighteenth century 
was in some respects far in advance of English thought 
in the seventeenth, but it was far behind contempora- 
neous American thought. It could grasp the notion of 
equality between church and state as antiquated; it 
could not grasp the notion of a legal relation between 
the free exercise of religion and governmental admin- 
istration as a guarantee of the former ; it could not go 
further than the concept of Erastianism as existent in 
Great Britain — the organic church as a legal person 
subject to the state. The possibility of a voluntary 
system for church support, of a secular corporation 



CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 123 

recognized by the law and administering such church 
concerns as are temporal, of spiritual affairs controlled 
only by spiritual authority, of harmonious relations 
between spiritual full-powers under a corporate entity 
created by them, and a state omnipotent and sovereign 
in secular affairs — this has not even yet entered the 
general European mind as a workable concept or a 
thing to be desired. 

Moreover, the limitation of secular authority in 
secular affairs by national sovereignty expressed in 
constitutions and bills of rights was not thoroughly 
understood. It is customary to say that the English 
Parliament is omnipotent and irresponsible within the 
sphere of law.^ As far as these words have any mean- 
ing, they mean that English conservatism, as expressed 
in legal habit and a strong social hierarchy, prevents 
encroachment on individuality and guarantees personal 
independence. The national habit of France being 
exactly the obverse of this, the secular authority, irre- 
sponsible and omnipotent exactly as Rousseau consid- 
ered it to be, might and would encroach on the rights 
of persons, whether natural or artificial. Excellent as 
the Declaration of the Rights of Man has been shown in 
the main to be, the language was hardly penned before 
its cardinal principle as to property was whistled down 
the wind, and the next step in its violation was still 
easier, in that although it imposed an intolerable bur- 
den on the consciences of most Frenchmen for no valid 
reason whatsoever, it seemed abundantly justified by 
historical precedent. There was a marked resemblance 
in many important respects between Selden and Camus, 
between the Long Parliament and the National As- 
sembly. 

Finally, it must be remembered that the men of 1789 

^ Bryce, American Commonwealth, I. 20. 



124 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

were legislating for Roman Catholics. England and 
English America were alike Protestant throughout, and 
in the main Protestant "root and branch," as the phrase 
then ran. It is true that there was a France which was 
not Roman ''root and branch" — a Gallican, Jansenist, 
Protestant, radical France, the France which had cre- 
ated a body of French thought and literature so im- 
portant that if it were deducted from the total, what is 
left would be only a maimed trunk, a mere torso. But 
behind and associated with this was a people — Roman, 
faithful, dependent — so swathed with Ultramontane 
tradition that it could not loose its bands without dan- 
ger to its entire religious, moral, intellectual, and social 
structure. It was natural that cautious legislators 
should seek a course of reform possible for timid 
minds, as they believed, and not likely to result in 
revolution. 

Acute critics have long since remarked that in 
the threefold watchword of the Revolution — Liberty, 
Equality, Fraternity — there is no mention of indepen- 
dence. This perfectly illustrates our contention ; Rous- 
seau's idea of a sovereignty constituted by the people 
was that while the power came from below, once cre- 
ated it should be as absolute as was ever that of the 
monarch. Accordingly, the men of 1789 made no ef- 
fort to rid themselves of the old ideas ; in religious ques- 
tions they had no clear conception of what a free church 
in a free state could mean, much less of how to organ- 
ize it. 

The work of the Ecclesiastical Committee was the 
joint achievement of the philosophers and the Jan- 
senists. Neither one nor the other had any higher ideal 
than that of toleration, and without much effort to 
reach even that low mark they fell into the mortal error 
of the old regime — a confusion of ecclesiastical power 



CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 125 

with secular, except that the latter was now to be the 
despotic master, not one of the parties to an agreement 
deliberately framed by both. The state was to pay the 
wages, and was determined to lay down the conditions 
of service. But what the committee did not see was 
this : these conditions w^ere questions of conscience, 
matters purely spiritual. For a representative body, 
irregularly chosen, as the Ultramontanes contended, to 
assume, as it had done, all the political sovereignty of a 
Constitutional convention or constituent assembly had 
been a strain on all French royalists, and on most of 
the civilized monarchical w^orld as well ; that such an 
assembly should erect itself into an ecclesiastical coun- 
cil to determine rules of faith and conduct roused the 
faithful everywhere to anxious foreboding, and made 
Catholic Christendom at large uneasy. Was political 
emancipation to terminate in renovated religious des- 
potism? 

The high clericals throughout the nation were quiek 
to take alarm, and asserted their readiness to maintain 
Roman Catholic ascendancy even to the shedding of 
their blood. The laity, too, especially in the south, 
where Protestantism was lifting up its head and gird- 
ing for the struggle, began a series of demonstrations 
which resulted in bloody riots. The infection of dis- 
order spread, civil war grew imminent, the Assembly 
took alarm. Whether or not the Ecclesiastical Com- 
mittee itself understood the true purport of the plan 
they presented in May, 1790, and which was rapidly 
enacted into a statute under the style ''Civil Constitu- 
tion of the Clergy," must ever remain a question for 
academic debate. What is unquestioned is the fact 
that in its entirety it represented the ecclesiastical and 
political theory most abhorrent to Jesuitry and Ultra- 
montanism as hitherto accepted by the majority of 



126 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

French Roman Catholics. Of course the Jansenism in 
it was not openly avowed; Camus, the chief author of 
the plan, concealed both himself and his dogma. The 
appeal he made in sanction of his proposition was to 
primitive and apostolic conditions ; the idea was osten- 
sibly to secure regeneration; the civil power posed as 
regulating nothing but external details. Considering 
the stern uprightness of Camus and the character of 
both the committee and the Assembly, it is impossible 
to accuse them of insincerity in these professions; as 
a matter of fact, the idea of a return to primitive eccle- 
siastical conditions was just as sophistical as that of a 
return to nature put forth by the philosophers. 

This can easily be seen. The central concept and 
very taproot of Roman Catholicism had been the spir- 
itual authority of the Pope; the Civil Constitution 
denied him all power of instituting prelates; thus de- 
priving him of every shred of spiritual jurisdiction or 
mission, recognizing him merely as an abstract ex- 
pression of Christian unity. To the overwhelming 
majority of the episcopate, minor clergy, and laity this 
could and did mean nothing less than the violation of 
conscience. The plea of the ecclesiastics was ''ultra 
vires" : the Assembly was not a national Galilean synod 
or council, and, even if it were, its decrees must receive 
the sanction of the Sovereign Pontiff in order to be 
valid. Herein lay the crucial point of contention. Ad- 
mitting the presence of clerics among its members, the 
Constituent Assembly was nevertheless a political body, 
and as such could not impose laws upon the church as 
an inferior. By the loss of its domains the church was 
no longer the first estate in the realm, or in fact an 
order at all in any recognized sense of the word. Yet 
it still retained its place as the religious organization of 
the vast majority of Frenchmen, preserving its historic 



CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 127 

continuity and traditions. As such it was a power con- 
current in spiritual things with the power of the As- 
sembly in secular affairs. The power of the church 
was from Christ himself; the state must protect it, but 
might never govern it. 

The plea of Camus and the committee was equally 
vigorous. The people, having resumed their political 
and civil rights, had determined likewise to resume 
their ecclesiastical rights, foremost among which was 
the choice of their spiritual guides; and these, once 
chosen and ordained, should have no territorial limita- 
tion in the exercise of their ministry. Accordingly, 
the National Assembly, possessing the unquestioned 
right to choose a national religion, and having deter- 
mined to preserve Roman Catholicism, arrogated noth- 
ing spiritual in the redistribution of episcopates, wdiich 
for convenience were to correspond to the departments. 
This abolished fifty bishoprics. As to the vital matter 
of institution, the Pope unquestionably was primate, 
and as such could counsel all the clergy, but could not 
assert or exercise jurisdiction; though they might ask 
advice of him, he could neither offer nor force it upon 
them ; he was in no sense the dispenser of ecclesiastical 
mission. 

The proposed selection of priests and bishops by pop- 
ular election was not strongly opposed ; the idea of in- 
ducting pastors thus chosen by the senior French bishop 
or metropolitan was stigmatized by the clerics as noth- 
ing short of schism. And schismatic it ultimately 
proved to be; for the moment the members from the 
clergy threatened, and in the main fulfilled their threat, 
of taking no further share in the proceedings. During 
the rest of the discussion there was therefore little oppo- 
sition; parish priests w^ere allowed to appoint their own 
curates without the approbation of the bishop, and 



128 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

modest stipends, payable in money from national funds, 
were fixed for each rank of the hierarchy. The Assem- 
bly secretly congratulated itself that a national church 
was thus constituted, and that the supremacy of the 
higher over the lower clergy was so minimized as to 
render the whole a homogeneous class. 

The Civil Constitution as finally adopted was divided 
into four heads. The first abolished the whole pre- 
existing establishment of archbishoprics, bishoprics, 
prebendaries, canonries, abbeys, priories, substituting 
ten metropolitan districts or archbishoprics and eighty- 
three bishoprics, according to the political arrondisse- 
ments and departments, respectively. In each of the 
latter was to be a theological seminary. The director 
of each seminary, together with the vicars, who were 
chosen by the bishop from among the cures of the par- 
ishes, likewise greatly reduced in number, formed a 
council for the diocese, without the assent of which 
the bishop could not exercise any jurisdiction what- 
soever. The fifth article under the first head forbids 
every church or parish of France ^ and every French 
citizen "to acknowledge in any case and under any pre- 
text whatsoever the authority of bishops or metropoli- 
tans whose see shall be established under the rule of 
a foreign power, or that of its delegates residing in 
France or elsewhere." 

Under the second head provision was made for the 
appointment and institution of the ministry. The 
electors of the departmental assembly nominated the 
candidates for bishop; those of the district assembly 
made the nominations for parish priests. The choice 
was "by ballot and absolute plurality of votes," those 
of freethinkers, Jews, and Protestants included; the 
attendance of all the electors upon mass was imper- 

^ Subsequently enlarged to include the French empire. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 129 

ative, at least of those who exercised their right of 
voting. The metropoHtan could examine and induct 
a newly elected bishop; a bishop, the newly elected 
cures; rejected candidates could appeal to the secular 
courts under the form ''because of abuse." This, of 
course, went to the root of the entire question, destroy- 
ing the whole system of canonical institution. Under 
the third head was fixed the stipend of each clerical 
rank. These stipends, as we have said, were modest. 
The Paris metropolitan was to receive fifty thousand 
francs ; other bishops from twenty to twelve thousand, 
according to their importance. This was an enormous 
diminution of episcopal revenues and prestige. Finally, 
according to the fourth head, all the official clergy were 
to remain in residence, and were subject to municipal 
authority like other officials. They were to swear that 
they would maintain the constitution.^ 

It may at once be conceded that the reforms thus con- 
templated were in theory purely external, and that 
there was no effort whatever to determine the origin 
or nature of spiritual creeds. But the fatal mistake of 
guaranteeing the support of Christian worship from 
national funds having once been made, the sequence 
was a distinct abuse of secular power. The plan ren- 
dered the connection of the Pope with the church 
purely mystical, and turned the clergy into state offi- 
cials. It matters not that the former ecclesiastical dis- 
orders due to scandalous favoritism were rendered im- 
possible ; the w^ay was opened for new ones. When the 
church becomes a secular institution its ministers tend 
to be time-servers and sycophants. Nor was the 
vaunted return to primitive conditions in the election 
of apostles and pastors in any degree satisfactory; the 

^ The text of the Civil Con- pendix is taken from the min- 
stitution as printed in the Ap- iites as given in Robinet, I. 331. 



I30 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

electors, being identical with those who voted for secu- 
lar officers, and the elections being held at the same 
time, on Sunday after mass, the door for base intrigue 
was opened wide. It is, however, unjust and contrary 
to sound procedure to criticise the Civil Constitution 
from the standpoint of present-day knowledge. The 
men who framed it were well intentioned and acted in 
good faith. They were driven to extremes by perverse 
opponents, both clerical and radical, whose desire was 
to substitute anarchy for reform, bide their time, and 
fish from the troubled waters of chaos what they really 
desired. The radicals had their turn, and then the 
clericals; the former failed utterly, the latter had a 
measure of chastened and apparently permanent suc- 
cess. 

The work of the legislature was completed on July 
jTwelfth, 1790; the king withheld his assent until Au- 
gust twenty- fourth. For this he had the best reasons ; 
the proposition being repugnant to his whole nature, 
and his interests as well, he vacillated and temporized 
with himself in this as in all other crucial matters, vir- 
tually referring his decision to Pius VI.^ And the 
Pope himself was scarcely less distracted; as early as 
March twenty-ninth he had explained to the secret con- 
sistory the desperate situation of France, reserving his 
decision, because as yet he could appeal to neither bish- 
ops, clergy, king, nor nation.^ Even in the crisis of 
July tenth he had advised the king to consult the arch- 
bishops of Vienne (Pompignan) and of Bordeaux 
(Champion de Circe), both high officials of undoubted 
fidelity and learning, and to abide by their decision. 
To both of them the Pontiff simultaneously addressed 

^ Theiner, Documents Inedits Notre Saint Pere le Pape, 28 

relatifs aux Afifaires Reli- Juillet, 1790. 

gieuses de la France, 1790 a '^ Ibid., p. i. 
1800, I. 264. Louis XVI. a 



CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 131 

identical letters, begging them to prevent the king from 
assenting to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.^ 
Both the prelates paltered and concealed from all con- 
cerned the facts not only of the Pope's attitude, but of 
the communications they had received. Thereupon 
Louis made a final appeal to Rome; Pius VL refused a 
direct reply, and referred the matter to a committee of 
cardinals.^ Driven to the wall, and hoping for some 
ulterior accommodation, Louis yielded to the clamor of 
the Assembly and the advice of his friends, who feared 
an insurrection, giving his formal consent on August 
twenty-fourth.^ He thus alienated not only all the en- 
thusiasm and loyalty of the church, but likewise that 
of Jansenists, Protestants, and philosophers, for his 
delay signified his dislike of the measure. 

For two months the Catholic party contented itself 
with agitation among the parishes ; the Assembly there- 
fore proceeded with its work of legislating for the ad- 
ministration of the Civil Constitution without serious 
interruption. As yet the clericals firmly believed that 
with the aid of the Pope they could assert their power 
by overwhelming numbers, overthrow the Civil Con- 
stitution, and restore peace to the distracted country. 
On October thirtieth the Archbishop of Embrun ad- 
dressed the Cardinal de Bernis, French ambassador to 
the Vatican, plainly stating this as a fact ; and possibly 
he was right.^ But the oracle of St. Peter's chair was 
dumb. 

Far otherwise his radical opponents. It is a sorry 
spectacle when infidelity presides at the debates of em- 

* Theiner, Documents Inedits recommending to the faithful 
relatifs aux Affaires Reli- the wisdom of the serpent ; for 
gieuses de la France, 1790 a an example, see Theiner, Docu- 
1800. I. 7. ments Inedits. I. 14. 

-Ibid., p. 16. *Ibid., p. 297. 

* Pius VI. was at this time 



132 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

bittered Christians. This had in a certain sense been 
true from the opening discussion of the Civil Constitu- 
tion, for it was at the very outset that the coming dicta- 
tor of the Revolution made his debut. Maximilien 
Robespierre, deputy from Arras, was not merely satu- 
rated with the doctrines of Rousseau, he was imbued 
with religiosity and was a fanatic. ''He will go far,'* 
said Mirabeau ; "he believes what he says." Like his 
master, he saw with piercing vision that a sovereignty 
constituted by popular will could never be supreme over 
conscience, especially the Christian conscience. Rous- 
seau bestowed on the state the right of imposing a civil 
religion upon its citizens, under pain of banishment or 
death; Robespierre declared from the tribune that 
priests are magistrates, neither more nor less; that 
society has the right, on grounds of public utility, to 
suppress whatever is superfluous in them or in their 
numbers, especially in so far as their power depends 
on foreign investiture ; that they must depend solely on 
popular suffrage; he even insinuated that to attach 
them to the state they should be forced to marry. 

This was the temper which began the war. The 
Bastille was gone, but every Parisian saw daily as he 
walked the street another symbol of the old "infamy" 
more striking even than had been the frowning for- 
tress — to wit, the mediaeval garb of the priests and 
nuns. It was not difficult to direct attention to the 
fact; during the debates the archiepiscopal palace was 
mobbed, the widely circulated radical journals heaped 
abuse on the clergy, and by September it was a common 
thing to rabble priests on the streets. Such was the 
violence of temper and conduct among the populace 
that timid souls could no longer face it, and the emigra- 
tion of the higher clergy assumed ominous dimensions. 
But if the civil war and schism were primarily insti- 



CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 133 

gated in fact by the radicals, the clericals did their 
utmost by word and deed to fortify the spirits of the 
faithful against all reform. As early as July first the 
Archbishop of Toulon stigmatized the movement as 
not directed toward regeneration, but toward anarchy. 
Steadily and regularly this idea was inculcated among 
the Catholics by their trusted leaders to the very end. 

Of course as time went on the language of the cler- 
icals grew more violent and bitter. The Assembly was 
called the scourge selected by God to chastise national 
sin because it had been the instrument of sin. In Sep- 
tember, Boissy d'Anglas denounced his colleague, the 
Bishop of Vienne, for disloyalty to the body in which 
the prelate continued to sit, and thenceforward it was a 
daily occurrence that the municipal authorities publicly 
denounced the ecclesiastics in all quarters of France for 
the violence of their treasonable utterances against the 
Assembly. The Bishop of Treguier was actually ar- 
raigned for high treason. In Nimes and Montauban 
the news of Dom Gerle's motion being rejected ini- 
tiated civil war between Catholics and Protestants. It 
was the former who originated the conflict and stigma- 
tized the election of Rabaud to the presidency of the 
Assembly as a crime. Order was partially restored, but 
revolution seethed under the surface. 

For more than a century the forces of the Roman 
Catholic Church in France had been distinctly centrifu- 
gal as regards the papacy. Le Vayer de Boutigny, 
author of the standard treatise on the authority of 
kings under the ancient monarchy, had expressly stated 
that in the matters necessary to salvation the church 
was supreme, in all others the state; and since obedi- 
ence to the laws of the state is expressly enjoined by 
God, they too are essential to salvation. The church 
therefore is the support of the state; in what is above 



134 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

the essentials of salvation the church may counsel per- 
fection, but not enforce the steps thereto. 

The logical consequences of this position had always 
been drawn by French prelates. But now, believing 
that the foundations of all order were crumbling, they 
suddenly discovered the value of ecclesiastical law and 
tradition. xA^sserting their love and fidelity to the Holy 
See, they sent more than two hundred pastorals far and 
near, exposing the breach in ecclesiastical continuity 
made by the Civil Constitution. To suppress more than 
fifty-one episcopal chairs and change the boundaries of 
the other dioceses was a usurpation of spiritual au- 
thority by the secular arm; to make Jews and Protes- 
tants electors in the choice of bishops and priests was 
contrary to the primitive usage cited by the canonists 
and contrary to the Concordat, a treaty not to be modi- 
fied without the assent of both the high contracting 
parties ; nor was the form of institution consonant with 
primitive usage under which the metropolitan received 
his power from provincial councils. Why not call a 
national council and negotiate with the Pope, who for 
two centuries had exercised the right of institution? 
Finally, to make the Pope a mere adviser was to render 
the Gallican Church national, a thing contradictory in 
itself and schismatic in its effects. 

The bishop-deputies to the Assembly set forth, on 
October thirtieth, a plain and moderate statement of 
this, their position, and transmitted it to the Pope, who 
delayed five long months before making a reply. This 
was inexcusable, and remains inexplicable. The inter- 
val was disastrous. As their pastorals passed through 
the land they were not merely read, they served as a 
text for unbridled license of speech, not only in the 
places already mentioned, but in Senez, Auch, Nantes, 
Lyons, and scores of other towns scarcely less impor- 



CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 135 

tant. Rioting broke out at Strasburg, in the Pas de 
Calais, and at Uzes. Resistance to the execution of 
the laws, whether concerning the sale of ecclesiastical 
estates or the administration of the Civil Constitution, 
was made in about forty different cities, and in some 
of them with temporary success, under the leadership 
of great ecclesiastical dignitaries. There was every 
variety of form and degree ; the prelates, unaccustomed 
to self-determination or independent action, behaved 
each according to his temper, and appeared for the 
most part to act not on principle, but from motives of 
selfishness, as if they were loath to part with place, sta- 
tion, and wealth. 

This at least was the interpretation put upon the 
facts when presented to the Assembly by its committee 
on November twenty-sixth. Enumerating upward of a 
hundred and fifty bishops, chapters, canons, priests, and 
curates who, in as many different places, denied the 
authority of the Assembly and appealed to the Pope, the 
chairman of the united commission, a deputy named 
Voidel, proposed that all priests, without exception, 
should take what he called a constitutional oath to obey 
the laws, the constitution, including the ecclesiastical 
provisions, and the king, under penalty of deposition 
and loss of salary and citizenship.^ This was tyranny 
pure and simple ; those who accepted pay from the gov- 
ernment, especially when tempted to insurrection by the 
example of colleagues high in place, might well be ex- 
pected to swear allegiance in general ; but to compel an 
oath to an abhorrent ecclesiastical constitution, includ- 
ing matters of conscience, was persecution. As the 
Bishop of Clermont tersely put it, the church was re- 
signed to the loss of her property ; she would never sur- 
render her liberty. 

^ Archives Parlementaires, XXIV. 52. 



136 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

The debate was long and bitter. Mirabeau, reply- 
ing to the bishops' statement of October thirtieth, 
made what was possibly the most eloquent and cer- 
tainly the most illogical of all his famous orations. 
Maury's retort was biting: we are asked to act in a 
single role the parts of judge, pontiff, and legislator; 
such things are done only at the serail in Constanti- 
nople. Therewith he began an impassioned review of 
the entire legislative procedure regarding the Roman 
Church, and sought to reopen the whole question. But 
Camus was too shrewd and quick to permit such a par- 
liamentary stroke ; interposing his austere presence and 
interrupting with severe, incisive speech, he swept the 
Assembly with him, while at the close he cited with 
dramatic fire Augustine's declaration that for the sake 
of peace he would resign all his ecclesiastical offices. 
The debater then urged the example on his opponents. 
Voidel's proposition was carried by an overwhelming 
majority. 



IX 

THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 



IX 

THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 

THIS appears to be the conjuncture of events at 
which reform verged to revolution. The king 
had been untouched by the philosophy of his century, 
he was a sincere and humble believer; without opin- 
ions of his own, he leaned, like the faithful Roman 
Catholic he professed to be, on his spiritual advisers 
for guidance. Without exception, and during the time 
of uncertainty as to the Pope's attitude, those advisers 
kept telling him that assent to the Civil Constitution 
would mean the perdition of his soul. 

Yet he saw clearly that a refusal to comply with 
the fierce demands of Assembly and people could 
mean nothing short of insurrection and, in the light 
of daily experience, the speedy overthrow of the mon- 
archy. His young queen not unnaturally wished to 
remain in her high station; he himself felt the bur- 
den of his ancestry and what he owed to his name; 
possibly he already knew, what is finally clear to the 
world, that the Pope's hesitancy was due to the at- 
titude of the French episcopate, and so hoped against 
hope that procrastination might result in toleration for 
the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. With the ablest 
canonists divided among themselves, a distracted mon- 
arch might thus easily deceive himself and reduce to 
practice the precepts of that Jesuitical casuistry in which 

139 



I40 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

he was trained. The force of circumstances, he felt, 
was too strong for his conscience. He was surrounded 
by aristocratic prelates, concerned more for their bene- 
fices than for the cure of souls; with and for their 
class invincibly fixed on the point of opposition to re- 
form, they did not warn, but rather abetted him. The 
chimera of a national church might otherwise have 
had some substance : had the king possessed any force 
of character, revolution would either have come sooner 
or else have been averted entirely. 

But behaving and feeling as Louis XVL did, the 
utter separation of church and state, the complete de- 
sertion of throne and altar by moderates and radicals 
was consummated quickly enough. By the menacing 
words and threats of force within and without the 
assembly hall, the king had felt compelled to act. He 
must either refuse or grant his sanction to the Civil 
Constitution. We feel somehow, as if even then, when 
giving his formal assent, he might have displayed a 
hesitating gravity, like that which he showed when he 
took the civic oath at the festival of federation. But 
having determined on the role of obliquity, he over- 
acted his part. He signed the constitution, and he did 
it with a Machiavellian appearance of sincerity that is 
disgusting.^ Twice, as if to salve the royal conscience, 
efforts were made on the floor of the Assembly to show 
that in the Civil Constitution there was no intention to 
attack conscience, dogma, or spiritual authority. The 
plea, which was intended really to justify the decree 
compelling all priests to take the oath, was in the main 
Gregoire's. But there were rioters without, and the 
galleries of the hall groaned under the weight of med- 
dling spectators. The fatal decree which made the oath 
indispensable was enacted on November twenty-seventh, 

^ Durand-Maillane, Histoire Apologetique, p, i86. 



THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 141 

1790. Perhaps it might have been lawful to exact from 
the clergy, as from others, a general oath to the king 
and the political constitution, especially as the prelacy 
far and near were now inciting and leading insurrec- 
tion ; but to exact a definite oath to a definite measure 
Avhich violated the consciences of men who were not 
state servants was, we repeat, primarily and necessarily 
a piece of shocking tyranny. The king's assent to the 
decree was obtained by the same menacing violence as 
that by which he had been forced to sanction the Con- 
stitution of the Clergy, and Louis again displayed the 
same unpardonable semblance of humility and com- 
plaisance.^ His purpose was already fixed. Incited 
thereto by D'Agoult, Bishop of Pamiers, he was plan- 
ning flight, and on December third he addressed Fred- 
erick William of Prussia, imploring aid against the 
French. Although the Assembly could not know this, 
they had an instinct of treachery, and even Camus 
talked of using force to subdue prelatical recalcitrancy. 

Suddenly the bolt fell. On December twenty-seventh 
the walls of Paris were placarded w^ith a forged poster, 
purporting to emanate from the municipality, which de- 
clared that the oath should be obligatory on all priests, 
w^ithout exception, w^hether functionaries or not, and 
that such as refused should be regarded as disturbers of 
the peace. Explanations and excuses were offered by 
both Mirabeau and Bailly, the mayor, but in vain ; the 
placard represented public opinion. Malouet asked, in 
vain too, for an inquisition to discover the offenders, 
and in vain was an effort made to commit the Assembly 
to Mirabeau's explanation that only those taking office 
should be required to swear. 

Barnave then carried the house in a demand that all 

^ For the text of his letter, see Robinet, Mouvement 
Religieux, I. 371. 



142 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

the ecclesiastics of the Assembly should be summoned 
to the bar and sworn. This was on January fourth. 
The ceremony began at once. An angry roar of ex- 
cited voices could be heard without. They swelled 
into one fierce shout: "The oath! the oath!" Not a 
priest was to escape, whether functionary or not. This 
closed the door to all accommodation, and then oc- 
curred the famous scene, second only in its grandeur 
to that of the Tennis Court, when, one after another, 
two thirds of the prelates and priests refused the oath 
with solemn mien, and thereby with impressive dignity 
surrendered their places. Of the hundred clerical dep- 
uties who had subscribed to the Civil Constitution, 
twenty retracted two days later, and others followed 
at intervals. Only two of the bishop-deputies, Talley- 
rand and Gobel, accepted the constitution. Four other 
bishops not deputies, ' one of them a cardinal, joined 
in the oath : Lomenie de Brienne, Jorente of Orleans, 
and Lafonte de Savines of Viviers, with Du Bourg- 
Miroudot. Gobel and Du Bourg-Miroudot were not 
true bishops, but merely titular — what are known by a 
fiction of the Roman Church as bishops in partihiis} 

The hundred and twenty-five nonjuring deputies of 
the clergy found themselves at the head of a great ma- 
jority among the laity, and such was the moral effect 
of so powerful a resistance that the Assembly was 
forced to adopt harsh and stringent measures. "We 
have seized their property," cried Mirabeau, "but they 
have preserved their honor." Now "honor" was still a 
proud word in France. It was a tremendous help to 
the radicals that incumbents for the eighty vacant bish- 
oprics had to be found among the parish priests, and 
Mirabeau composed what was intended to be a con- 
ciliatory paper, an address to the people, to be printed 
^ De Pressense, The Church and the French Revolution, p. 165. 



THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 143 

and published throughout France, explaining that 
change in diocesan boundaries was a secular matter, 
and appealing for the thousand and first time to prim- 
itive Christianity as a sanction for the election of pas- 
tors by popular suffrage. But his main reliance was 
continuous and intemperate abuse of the clergy, which, 
though having a shadow of reason, so offended even 
the Jansenists and Protestants that the paper was sent 
to a committee for modification. In its final form the 
appeal reiterated the two fundamental propositions and 
defended the oath as nothing but a solemn promise of 
officials to obey the law. Severe and indefinite penal- 
ties were to be inflicted on those who undertook to 
perform clerical functions without swearing. This 
was ordered to be read as a pastoral in all the churches 
on January twenty-sixth. It was further decreed that, 
contrary to either the primitive or later practice of 
Rome, the newly chosen bishops might be inducted 
into their sees by any of the sworn bishops without 
further institution. 

The initial steps by which the Constitutional, na- 
tional church was organized w^ere destitute of all moral 
grandeur. Already the Bishop of Autun was well 
known as a man without piety; Gobel was a notorious 
time-server ; both were virtual neophytes in apostasy. 
Yet it was Talleyrand, assisted by Gobel and Miroudot, 
who consecrated the first Constitutional bishop, the 
Abbe Expilly, and installed him in his ''department of 
the Aisne" ; Gobel, alone and unassisted, consecrated 
more than half of the total number of new bishops — no 
fewer than forty-eight. Under the latest decree these 
in turn consecrated the remainder. The municipalities 
and Jacobin clubs in the various district capitals re- 
ceived their official coadjutors with dignity and re- 
spect. But it was far otherwise with the religious 



144 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

houses; in most cases the various monastic orders 
closed their doors in the faces of the constitutional 
bishops, and in many parts of France their authority 
was established and maintained by military force. 
During the life of the Constituent Assembly the non- 
juring ecclesiastics of the provinces were unmolested; 
they even received a slender allowance of money and 
were permitted to say mass in some of the churches of 
the departments. Later their case was far different. 

Thus by a process legally regular but morally im- 
perfect was formed a complete, though halting and 
lame state establishment. The effect was deplorable. 
In Paris, where for centuries the Gallican Church had 
assembled all that was most learned and brilliant and 
devoted among its clergy, high and low, almost two- 
thirds — four hundred and thirty from six hundred and 
seventy — of the officiating ecclesiastics, and they the 
most distinguished, refused the oath. The Paris pop-, 
ulace was so infuriated that, with cries of "The oath or 
the gallows !" they mobbed the Church of St. Sulpice, 
where the rector was especially outspoken in his obdur- 
acy. Of the fifty-two rectors of Paris twenty-three 
subscribed. Such resistance might have been expected 
in the metropolis; but while our knowledge of the 
provinces is defective, the records having either not 
been kept at all or destroyed later, yet it is reasonabl}'' 
certain that in the country as a whole the proportion of 
recusants was not much lower than in Paris. That a 
number relatively so large actually took the oath was 
due in part to the silence of the Vatican, but in the 
main to the falseheartedness with which the king had 
sanctioned the Civil Constitution, an act which, in view 
of the now well-known facts, that his court was already 
plotting with foreign potentates, that his personal chap- 
lains had refused the oath, that he himself never at- 



THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 145 

tended a ''Constitutional" service, finally, that he was 
already contemplating flight to escape further identifi- 
cation with the general movement, cannot be too se- 
verely reprobated as Jesuitry.^ 

It is claimed by the polemics both of the Roman 
Catholics and of the radicals that there was already 
no freedom of action or debate; the casuistry of one 
side lending itself to false representations, the violence 
of the other intimidating anxious souls. Both are 
riglit. Jansenism revenged itself on Ultramontanism, 
and in so doing committed itself and the Assembly in 
particular to a false position. Romanism temporized 
in part and in part accepted the role of martyrdom, the 
radicals enforced their false doctrine, encouraged vio- 
lence, and flourished in the dissensions of ecclesiasti- 
cism, and these culminated in a schism that withdrew 
from the cause of reform many, if not the majority, of 
those w^ho alone could have guided its steps on a dif- 
ferent path. 

The formal institution of the Constitutional clergy 
having been attended with comparatively little difficulty, 
the fate of the national church depended largely on the 
attitude of the Pope, but in the main and finally on the 
character of the new incumbents. Some of these were 
unexceptionable. Gregoire of Blois was spotless in 
character, wise in administration, and successful in his 
pastoral work, for he acted from sincere conviction. 
Claude Le Coz, at Rennes, displayed both faith and he- 
roism, protecting the nonjuring clergy against the most 
violent assaults. But the new positions in the prov- 
inces were too often filled by unworthy self-seekers 
who seriously misbehaved themselves in many in- 
stances, and at the best failed in most places to win 
the confidence of their peoples. Several of the new 
^ Memoires de Bouille, i"^^ ed., II. 42. 



146 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

bishops, by a display of unfortunate secular temper, 
accepted offices which seemed to the observant masses 
utterly incompatible with their spiritual station. Ma- 
rolles at Laon,Fauchet in Calvados, and Villar at Laval, 
were chosen and served as presidents of the respective 
Jacobin clubs in those districts. There was no social 
heresy which Fauchet did not proclaim from his pulpit ; 
and Gobel, the Paris metropolitan, was an arch dema- 
gogue, too ignorant to lead in anarchistic movements 
and disposed at every crisis to jump with the cat. Si- 
multaneously with the process of investing the Consti- 
tutionals, great numbers of the parish clergy in the 
country, who had at first taken the oath and still held 
their cures, began under various influences to retract. 
Violent antagonisms were speedily aroused, expressed 
at first in warnings, taunts, and gibes. But actual vio- 
lence soon broke forth, and the nonjuror Catholics who 
worshipped in conventicles or under the protection of. 
the religious houses still in existence were in many 
instances shamefully mobbed. Rioters burst open the 
doors of ten or more nunneries belonging to the Sisters 
of Charity in Paris, and the termagant women of the 
Central Market pitilessly scourged their helpless sis- 
ters through the streets; like brutalities were seen in 
Rochelle, Mans, and Lyons. No one was punished. 

When the king and court arranged to spend Easter 
week in retirement at St. Cloud, it was whispered abroad 
that in this apparently harmless excursion the king's 
real object was to receive the paschal eucharist from the 
hands of a nonjuror priest. In consequence, the pop- 
ulace of the capital, suspecting, if not that, at least some 
other trick, forced the royal carriages back at the very 
gate of the Tuileries.^ Not only was Louis now a 
virtual prisoner in his own house, but the authorities 

^Archives Parlementaires, XXV. 200. 



THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 147 

of the city burst into menaces, threatening his further 
Hberty and violently charging him with giving his con- 
fidence to refractory priests. The Cordeliers placarded 
the walls with denunciations of the king himself as a 
refractory. It is not incomprehensible that hencefor- 
ward the desertion of the throne, the effort to sustain 
the monarchy on foreign soil, and the abandonment of 
loyal hearts to their fate were parts of an irrevocable 
revolution. A faint heart and a superstitious faith 
form an ill-assorted union. 

Lafayette as commander of the National Guard did 
what he could to protect the worship of nonjurors in 
authorized halls, but his efforts were vain; much less 
could he secure liberty of action in the same way for 
the king. His troops w^ould not interpret their am- 
biguous instructions as compelling the protection of 
nonjurors, burgher or royal. Thereupon the general 
resigned and offered asylum to a congregation of the 
churchless in his own house. He resumed his com- 
mand, however, under strong pressure, but only with 
the assurance that the king's personal liberty would not 
again be violated. Meantime the nonjurors had hired 
the church of the Theatins, but the authorities of the 
city, finding that the necessary poster announcing the 
place as one of private w^orship, had not been affixed to 
the building, forbade its use, and closed it, under stress 
of mob violence. This congregation Lafayette took 
under his protection on resuming command of the Na- 
tional Guard. 

We have already noted the effect upon Parisians of 
the efforts to secure burgher privileges and a limited 
suffrage by Constitutional measures. The first Con- 
stitutional measure in which the political suffrage was 
exercised in such a way as to control the masses of 
France was the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Be- 



148 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

cause this was a religious control, it oppressed the con- 
sciences of the majority. The consequence of the 
king's attitude in regard to it was twofold as far as the 
reformers were concerned. The radical thinkers began 
to feel that they could dispense with such a smooth and 
supple king, and it was neither among the peasantry 
nor among the artisans and laborers, but in the very 
heart of the burgher class that a nucleus of democracy 
was formed, largely under the instigation of Marat and 
after his appeals of June, 1790. Its leaders were men 
widely differing from each other in temper and endow- 
ments, but all able and ardent : Robespierre, Gregoire, 
Marat, Condorcet. 

When on February fourth, 1790, the king so gra- 
ciously accepted the new political constitution, there 
could be little doubt of his capacity as the leader 
of reform, and no question of democracy could exist, 
for the nation was royalist, and Louis was personally 
popular. The festival of the federation seemed truly 
national and it was purely royalist. But the attitude 
of the king to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, out- 
wardly assenting, inwardly raging, was quickly di- 
vined, and changed the temper of the moderate liberals 
completely. They could dispense with such a cowardly 
hypocrite as Louis clearly was. For some time men 
had used the words "Republic of France" in the sense 
purely of "commonwealth." But the very word "re- 
public" led to further thought, and in December the 
newly published pamphlet of Robert, entitled, "Re- 
publicanism in France," was widely read and approved 
by many who could not yet stomach the radical de- 
mocracy. A further accession to the ranks of those 
who distrusted the institution of monarchy because 
they despised the monarch came through the suffer- 
ings and famine of the winter, which led to an examina- 



THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 149 

tion of the bases of society and produced many social- 
ists. Moreover, from the beginning of the new 
regime, especially in the preliminary movement of 
municipal reform, the women of France had come to 
the front. Certain of them now became leaders in the 
democratic-republican movement. Between January 
and June, 179 1, four social elements — those who were 
already suffering from hunger, those who detested the 
king for his suspected duplicity, the supporters of the 
commonwealth idea, and the femininists, as they were 
styled — all drew closer and closer together, until, few 
in number as they were and unpopular as were their 
tenets, they formed a powerful moral force. Our min- 
ister, Gouverneur Morris, noted as early as April that 
even in the highest circles it was already fashionable 
to announce yourself as republican.^ 

It must be remembered that so far all was suspicion : 
even the retreat to St. Cloud was suspected to be only 
a ruse. The king was not content to let suspicion die 
out, and to continue his underhand dealing behind a 
specious inactivity and moderate compliance such as 
had been consonant with his character. Had he 
merely continued to hunt, to eat, to drink, to play the 
clown, to tinker with his toy locks in his toy shop, he 
would have shown himself an adroit diplomat. But he 
behaved far otherwise. In April, some days after the 
Easter fiasco, he caused his diplomatic representatives 
throughout Europe to deny emphatically that he was 
unhappy, for he could have no happiness except that of 
his people, and this was patent to all ; to assert that his 
authority was never so strong, since it was now founded 
on the law ; to deny the base rumor that the king was 
no longer free, for it was of his own volition that he 
resided among the citizens of Paris, a concession he 
^Aulard, Histoire Politique de la Revolution Frangaise, p. 114. 



ISO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

owed to their patriotism, their anxieties, and their af- 
fection.^ Not content with this, Louis presented him- 
self before the Assembly, asserted his fidelity to the new 
constitution, including the regulations pertaining to the 
clergy, dismissed his chaplains, and attended mass in 
company with the queen at St. Germain I'Auxerrois, 
the parish church of the Tuileries. This and similar 
acts discouraged and infuriated the nonjurors without 
winning the slightest liberal support. Disaster to the 
church and dissolution of the nation were at hand. 
''Your detestable Constitution of the Clergy," said 
Mirabeau to Camus, "will ruin the one we are making 
for ourselves." 

The Pope, moreover, had spoken at last, unfortu- 
nately not in a dispassionate spirit, but under the in- 
fluence of a bitter grievance. Two counties of the 
Rhone valley, Avignon and Venaissin, had been papal 
states for four centuries. Like other portions of the dis- 
trict, they had been fired with the theory of liberty, and 
asserting the cardinal principle of the Revolution, de- 
manded in the exercise of their popular sovereignty to 
be incorporated in France. The Assembly dreaded the 
diplomatic troubles sure to arise, but sympathized with 
the spirit of the people. In the necessity for preserving 
order French troops occupied the counties during Jan- 
uary, 1 79 1. What the inevitable result would be was 
known long before to both Pius and his subjects — at 
least as early as March, 1790, when the Avignon riots 
began. The end was not actually reached until Sep- 
tember thirteenth, 1791, when the union was voted. 
It was therefore under a sense of impending personal 
wrong that Pius, who had as keen a desire for tempo- 
ralities as any prince in Europe, finally broke silence. 
The official utterances of the papal chair are contained 
^ Archives Parlementaires, XXV. 312, 313. 



THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 151 

in three papers : the preHminary brief, the brief ''Cari- 
tas," and a letter to the king.^ 

In private correspondence the Pope had for months 
past steadily been urging the French clergy to resist the 
Civil Constitution ; in the brief of March tenth the first 
official utterance, he did not formally arraign the Civil 
Constitution, but with doubtful tact he condemned 
every vital principle of the Revolution, including lib- 
erty of thought and action; moreover, he expressly 
threatened all recalcitrants among the clergy with ex- 
communication. This paper was referred to a coun- 
cil of the Constitutional ecclesiastics. 

In an open letter to the king Pius explicitly con- 
demned the Civil Constitution. The assembly of the 
Constitutional priests replied in a strain far nobler than 
that of their spiritual head. Reviewing the means of 
conciliation they had suggested in their statement of 
principles, they declared their continued adherence to 
the principles of liberty and equality, asserted their 
belief in toleration as a principle of civil authority 
and in the necessity for a separation of the spiritual 
from the secular power. If schism could thereby be 
prevented, they were ready to resign in a body. On 
April thirteenth the Pope issued his rejoinder. The 
Civil Constitution of the Clergy he now asserted to 
be heresy pure and simple, and all the faithful were 
adjured to stand firm by the ancient doctrines. The 
document was publicly burned in the Rue Royale on 
May first by a contemptuous mob. Thus the war was 
declared, conciliation made impossible, and the battle 
was joined. 

The Paris press began to breathe threatenings and 
slaugfhter. But the Constitutionals were in a serious 

^ Briefs of Pius VI., I. 126. Theiner, Documents Inedits, 
I. 18, 90, 94, 142. 



152 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

quandary. For them there was now a choice between 
perverse, avowed schism and diplomatic procrastin- 
ation. They dehberately selected the latter and de- 
scended to the basest practices. Protesting that since 
the communications professing to emanate from the 
Pope had not been addressed to the government they 
could not be genuine, they surreptitiously issued a 
spurious brief in which the Pope was made to sanction 
the Civil Constitution.^ When this paper had been 
sufficiently circulated to create widespread uncertainty, 
they openly distributed an official circular repeating 
that since the pretended rescript from Rome had not 
received the authority of letters patent from the throne, 
as was customary, it could not be genuine. It would 
be a scandal should the successor of St. Peter openly 
violate a well-known law. He could never have done 
it.^ The brief of April thirteenth was then denounced 
far and near as a fraud. Camus alone disdained such, 
subterfuges, and admitting the paper to be genuine, 
fiercely assailed all its positions, proving the whole to 
be nugatory.^ His logic was irrefutable, but the hour 
and the people were incapable of grasping it. The 
country resounded with denunciations and counter- 
denunciations. For long the Ultramontanes could pro- 
duce no convincing proof. High words led to high- 
handed outrage. 

As the storm grew more and more menacing, the 
important nonjurors of high rank fled across the 
border in ever increasing numbers, notably Cardinal 
Rohan of Strasburg and others only less important. 
Of the Constitutional substitutes in important bishop- 
rics, many proved to be men of probity, acting accord- 
ing to the dictates of conscience, and a very few rose to 

^ See letter of Bishop of Mar- ^ Hesmivy d'Auribeau, Ex- 

seilles, in Theiner, Documents traits des Memoires, I. 207. 

Inedits, 1.330, The forgery was ^Observations sur deux 

entitled Vrai Bref du Pape. Brefs, Juillet, 1791. 



THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 153 

the heights of marked and real ability. Of course all 
of these were not men of great wisdom. Gregoire of 
Blois, as was expected, continued the strongest, not 
because of learning or eloquence, but because of a char- 
acter firmly rooted in conviction and courage. Gobel 
chose his associates among the basest elements of revo- 
lutionary radicalism, performed his duties without zeal, 
and was finally execrated as a weak vessel tossed by 
every wave of popular violence, trimming his sails so 
often that he failed to hold any course. He soon iden- 
tified himself with actual unbelief and ended in the 
complete shipwreck of blasphemy and scandal. Tal- 
leyrand, rapidly preparing his apostasy from the min- 
istry and from Christianity, was justly famous for 
consummate ability and versatility. Lomenie de 
Brienne, fickle and perverse, was openly denounced by 
the Pope, but not for his real faults : Pius accused him 
of preparing toleration for Protestants and of restor- 
ing the Edict of Nantes ! The persecuting temper of 
the papacy, thus frankly revealed, was met by a fa- 
naticism only more dangerous because more powerful, 
more active, and more virulent. 

Mirabeau had died on April second, a fortnight be- 
fore the king's attempted retreat to St. Cloud. Al- 
ready the terrors of the popular passion he had done so 
much to excite were before his eyes, and up to the very 
moment of his fatal seizure he was engaged Avith 
Malouet and others on a plan to stay the portentous 
storm of revolution now on the horizon. In vain. 
"Dormir" — to sleep, he wrote with the feebleness of ex- 
haustion, and died. The Paris magistracy, in a mo- 
ment of sanity, were simultaneously contemplating 
measures to secure liberty of worship for nonjuring 
Catholics, but they were as effectually checked by vio- 
lence as he by death. The stream of persecuting 
frenzy fretted against all barriers. Those who sup- 



( 



154 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

ported the Constitutionals developed into a political 
party styling themselves "patriots," while they began 
to stigmatize the supporters of those who refused the 
oath as aristocrats. 

For a moment the reaction against the shocking 
inhumanity shown to the Sisters of Charity enabled 
the Assembly calmly to discuss the whole question of 
how religious liberty was to be exercised. On May 
second, Talleyrand, chairman of the committee to 
which the matter had been referred, presented his re- 
port. It pleaded superbly for complete liberty, and 
denounced mere toleration as an unworthy and un- 
necessary shift. The practical solution of the diffi- 
culty, he thought, was to be found in permitting non- 
juror priests to officiate in the state churches at hours 
other than those of regular service. The plan was 
actually put into operation and worked well in many 
parish churches and chapels, but only for a very short 
time. On June second an effort was made to reopen 
the church of the Theatins for nonjuring worship. 
The church was unfortunately most conspicuous on 
the Quai des Theatins, now the Quai Voltaire, and 
again the mob of Paris intervened and shut the doors. 
The cowardly flight of Louis to Varennes on June 
twenty-first broke down all restraints. Measure after 
measure, each more rigorous than the preceding, was 
put into force against the nonjurors. Constitutional 
ecclesiastics in many places identified themselves with 
the radicals, notably Gobel in Paris and Fauchet in 
Calvados. Camus and the Jansenists resisted every 
effort at conciliation or accommodation. When the 
National or Constituent Assembly gave way to the 
newly elected Legislative on September thirtieth, eva- 
sion, strife, dissension, violence, prevailed over the 
whole land. 



X 

WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 



X 



WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 



THUS Jansenist, philosopher, and Protestant had 
inaugurated their work. It was not a good work 
because the materials were not good, the structure was 
ill adapted to its uses, and those who were to live in it 
refused to trust their lives to its shelter. The Jansen- 
ists under Camus had arranged to depapalize France; 
the philosophers under Mirabeau to decatholicize it ; 
the Protestants under Rabaud to erastianize it ; the rad- 
icals under Hebert were preparing to dechristianize it. 
Decatholicize and dechristianize were the words re- 
spectively of Mirabeau and Hebert. The estates of 
tl;e church were secularized ; its ministers were to be 
public functionaries; the Bishop of Rome, as Lanjui- 
nais with exasperating iteration styled the incumbent of 
St. Peter's chair, was to be no longer a sovereign pon- 
tiff, but a personal expression of ecclesiastical unity as 
far merely as that unity existed and the parties thereto 
assented. The Civil Constitution embodied these ideas, 
and its makers, seeking with perfect good faith to 
inaugurate true reform, inaugurated chaos. 

But the finishing touch was put to the work of de- 
struction, the consummation of dismay and ruin was 
achieved, not by the Constitutionals, but by the old 
ecclesiastics. Once and again they had forged the bolts 
by which the walls of their own Jerusalem were riven ; 
they now set the petards which burst open the breaches 

157 



iSB THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

and admitted the conquering foe. For their instru- 
ment of final ruin they chose no less a personage than 
the king. Louis had become the facile tool of Jesuitry 
and prelacy. With "death in his soul," but with joy 
in his eyes, he had signed the Civil Constitution, while 
simultaneously he was planning to take refuge from 
his own acts by escaping to Montmedy. This was in 
October, 1790. The scheme having failed, he contin- 
ued to plot for the same end, though outwardly even 
more sympathetic with the movement of the hour. 
Turned back from St. Cloud, yet the subsequent circular 
of April twenty-third, 1791, to all the courts of Europe 
had asseverated that in all his acts he was entirely free 
and perfectly sincere. The Assembly was full of en- 
thusiasm about his conduct, and to a deputation sent by 
it to congratulate him he declared that if they could 
read the bottom of his soul they would find there "feel- 
ings calculated to justify the confidence of the nation. 
All mutual distrust would be banished and we would 
all be happy." Yet simultaneously and constantly he 
was plotting with Bouille and planning flight. Feign- 
ing, scheming, lying, acting, the king was stable in 
nothing except the grim determination not to lose his 
soul, and that was exactly what his confessors assured 
him he would do if the Civil Constitution should be ac- 
cepted by the Galilean Church and work smoothly 
by royal aid. This was the central motive of the 
final effort to leave France, made on the night of June 
twentieth, and thwarted by the loose discipline and dis- 
obedience of Bouille's troops. All France was con- 
fused and bewildered by the virtual abdication: face 
to face with innumerable and awful dangers, the nation 
felt itself to be deserted by its head and well-nigh lost. 
The consequences from a political point of view are 
incalculable. While conservative instinct struggled 



WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 159 

to restore the king and surround him with proper safe- 
guards, yet royalty in his person was discredited — nay, 
more, it was actually suspended for three months; 
democrats and republicans made a great gain, if not 
in numbers at least in prestige, for during ninety 
days their plan was actually put into successful op- 
eration. 

Now, the king's motive for such base inconsistency 
was rendered perfectly clear in a proclamation made on 
leaving Paris, and generally believed to have been 
written by himself. If it were, it is his chef-d'oeuvre 
of criticism and sincerity, unequalled by any other of 
his performances. The scathing arraignment of the 
constitution of 1791 which he then made is the final 
condemnation of that paper, and no critic since has 
had anything substantial to add. But, above all, the 
royal document makes clear that second to no other 
object in his flight was his determination to regain his 
religious liberty. With emphatic detail he recites the 
entire process whereby religious anarchy had been 
created and his own conscience violated : the dissen- 
sions of the realm amid which he had been rendered 
odious by his attachment to the faith of his sires; his 
violent arrest when starting for St. Cloud, and his im- 
prisonment in the Tuileries; the encouragement of 
rioters by the National Guard ; the compulsory dismis- 
sal of his chaplains, and finally the hated services at St. 
Germain TAuxerrois conducted by a Constitutional 
priest.^ 

It must not be supposed that the conception of a free 
church in a free state had never presented itself to 
French minds. The example of the United States had 
wrought powerfully on public opinion for ten years 
past, and Lafayette, though sometimes weak and the- 

^ Choix de Rapports, Opinions et Discourse IV. 97. 



i6o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

atrical in trying crises and when removed from Wash- 
ington's judicious mastery, had in this respect at least 
faithfully proclaimed what he had seen and noted. His 
simple solution of the whole question was complete lib- 
erty of worship, and every man to pay for that form 
under which he chose to do homage to his Maker.^ 
The notion began to find supporters even among the 
Ultramontanes, and there was agitation in its behalf 
even among the Constitutionals. Had the monarchical 
constitution of 1791 been modified accordingly, France 
might have been spared untold miseries. It went far, 
and granted amnesty for all transgressions connected 
with the Revolution. Further, the proposition to em- 
body in it the whole Civil Constitution was rejected. 
Consequently many Catholics who abhorred the latter 
document took the civil oath to the political constitu- 
tion with gladness, and the king swore with some sin- 
cerity to maintain it. Yet it explicitly afftrmed in its 
first article that "citizens have the right to elect or 
choose the ministers of their religion," which is the 
basic principle of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; 
and it provided for the support of those thus chosen. 
This last is the essential and vicious principle which 
left the door wide open for further iniquity. 

The spread of opinions making for emancipation 
was tremendously furthered by the continuation of 
disorder under the Legislative Assembly, the newly 
elected body of deputies which began its ill-starred ca- 
reer of mediocrity on October first, 1791. The record 
of these ecclesiastical disorders is too long and dreary 

^Farewell Address. (Moni- idea of a prescribed and domi- 

teur, October 11, 1791.) "Lib- nant cult." For the utter re- 

erty could never be firmly es- jection of his plan to adopt the 

tablished should intolerance system of the United States, 

under the guise of nondescript see his Memoires, III. 62. 
patriotism dare to harbor the 



WORSHIP OLD AND NEW i6i 

to be chronicled in detail. Indeed, the facts are to this 
day somewhat uncertain. But some things are clear — 
that there were outrages, and that the area of outrages 
extended with every day. 

On one hand, the authenticity of the papal briefs 
was now denied by many of the nonjurors who still 
hoped for peace; on the other, their contents were 
accepted by the irreconcilable Ultramontanes, and exe- 
crated by those of the radicals who, like the ecclesi- 
astical extremists, saw their account in a civil war. 
The sincere and embittered nonconformists inveighed 
against the oath-bound priests as defiled, and the emi- 
grant bishops flooded the country with pastoral letters 
giving minute instructions to the faithful how to evade 
the law. The Constitutionals steadily identified them- 
selves to a greater degree with a political party, the 
so-called patriots, and as far as possible made their 
religion a matter of state. 

Tumult and scandal became rife not only in Vendee, 
the province whose people were the most profoundly 
attached to religion, as they knew it, of any in all 
France, but in Deux-Sevres, at the gate of the capital, 
in Maine-et-Loire, Calvados, and in short everywhere. 
Rumors of rebellious excesses by the nonjurors reached 
Paris by every new courier from the departments. It 
seemed impossible to secure any exact information, for 
apparently the country population was in league with 
the rioters. One thing alone was certain : the fact of 
the riots. Bands of armed men under the banner of 
religion, mostly nonconformists, scoured and terrorized 
the country. Even women trooped together in un- 
bridled frenzy and rabbled the Constitutional priests. 
Funeral and marriage processions dispersed at the mere 
approach of a Constitutional priest as of a thing defiled. 

The general disorganization was so complete that 



i62 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

the all-important taxes could not be collected. Such 
at least were the alarming reports made both to the 
Constituent ^ and to the Legislative by the regular 
civil authorities and by special investigating commit- 
tees. There seems no reason to doubt the substantial 
truth of them, nor likewise the generally accepted ac- 
count that where they were strong enough the juror 
party of the patriots engaged in reprisals of much hor- 
ror.^ The nonjuring priests in many places were 
massacred ; throughout the provinces some of the more 
seditious were imprisoned as law-breakers and severely 
handled; thousands disguised themselves and worked 
as day laborers. The rescript of Louis on his flight 
to Varennes had specified all his personal woes; the 
most important, as has been explained, was the restraint 
of his conscience in the exercise of his religion, and in 
this he had expressed, as was now perfectly evident, the 
feeling of the vast majority of the Roman churchmen 
of France. They could not fly, so they fought like wild 
animals at bay; he had tried flight, and when turned 
back to Paris, he paltered, trimmed, and hurried on to 
his fate. 

In the new legislature were ten Constitutional bishops 
and seventeen Constitutional vicars. Not one was a 
man of mark. One of the bishops was the notorious 
Fauchet of Calvados, who, under the guise of pastoral 
visitations throughout that department, had so inflamed 
the populace by his anarchistic harangues that by order 
of the Assembly he had been arrested and ordered to 
trial. But a Jacobin mob had first rescued him and then 
elected him to the Legislative. Among the lay mem- 

^ Especially that of Legrand north, declaring that modera- 

on August 4, 1791, which made tion must be discarded for the 

a great stir. It demanded sake of the public safety. 

prompt and vigorous measures ^ See Barruel Histoire du 

to repress the disorders in the Clerge, p. 44, 



WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 163 

bers were a few moderate men from the defunct Con- 
stituent, sitting on the right. They were ahnost lost 
among the throngs of new men. The left was com- 
posed of brilliant but unstable Girondists, and the ex- 
treme left of a few violent Jacobins, whose adherents 
were growing hourly in numbers and strength through 
the indecision of their opponents and the support of the 
now organized and impatient Paris populace. This 
was the engine of tyranny for an unconstitutional, il- 
legal power — what the Greeks would have called mob 
government, or ochlocracy. It regularly crowded the 
precincts of the hall, interfering with the feeble efforts 
at calm discussion or wise legislation by uproarious 
manifestations of assent or dissent. The great mass 
of the delegates who occupied the centre were dazed 
and inconstant, showing little interest in any real prin- 
ciple. Their mediocre powers were fully occupied in 
a feeble alertness as to how events would turn. The 
body as a whole understood its commission to be the 
overthrow of every hindrance to the Revolution ; it 
developed into the servile instrument of clubs, cabals, 
and violent agitators. 

Whatever the faults of the Constituent had been, at 
least it contained men whose eloquent pleading com- 
manded the attention of the nation, and it never in 
all its thirteen hundred and nine enactments at- 
tacked personal liberty or conscience, as the members 
understood the words. The record of its debates 
clearly shows that nonjuring was never held to be a 
crime against the state. The Legislative had some 
members distinguished by piety, wisdom, and modera- 
tion; it had many Girondists of insight, brilliancy, and 
courage; but its better element could not assert itself, 
its shrewdness was not translated into action, and the 
dull homogeneity of its vast majority had no motive 



1 64 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

power except blind zeal. A persecuting spirit, though 
embryonic, existed among the extreme men of both 
left and right, and for its development it found a per- 
fect nidus in such a body. 

When the legislature began its sessions many of 
what were now called refractory priests continued to 
minister in their respective parishes. The committees 
appointed to investigate the ecclesiastical troubles of 
the various departments brought in reports which were 
temperate and fair. They admitted that all the trouble 
came from the imposition of the clerical oath as pro- 
vided in the constitution, and from the complete con- 
fidence which the simple folk reposed in their pastors. 
The latter were now alienated from the Revolution, and 
while some of them were content to let politics severely 
alone, yet others were beyond peradventure conspiring 
to discredit the government by a senseless resistance to 
all the ecclesiastical measures of the Assembly. The 
sometime Bishop of Lugon appealed to his faithful 
clergy to regard the decree of May seventh as a trap to 
lead unwary orthodox into cooperation with heretical 
schismatics; if ministering in the parish church, the 
dissident priest was to fly on the appearance of a Con- 
stitutional, and taking refuge in any barn, shed, or 
other shelter, was to celebrate the mass, even with ves- 
sels of pewter and chasubles of calico. They were, 
however, to assert themselves as the sole legitimate in- 
cumbents, and keep in secret careful minutes of all 
cases of intrusion. The Constitutionals, it was asserted, 
could perform no valid act : marriage, sepulture, or bap- 
tism. Any one refusing to acknowledge this and asso- 
ciating himself in any form with the schismatics was 
guilty of mortal sin.^ This was a typical instance and 

^ See the report of Gallois vember 12, 1791. The report 
and Gensonnee, Moniteur, No- of Veirieu, given in the Ar- 



WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 165 

displayed the universal tenor of the instructions given 
by the irreconcilable propaganda throughout France. 

At that time the old parish priests, as was said, still 
formed a great majority of the country clergy. The 
simple reason was that as yet but few Constitutionals 
had been installed. Where they had been inducted 
and had been honestly striving to perform their func- 
tions, probably not one in fifty of their parishioners 
could be induced even to attend church; the peasantry 
in flocks followed their old pastors to the Ultramon- 
tane conventicles. Almost without exception, the re- 
fractory priests abstained from their legal privilege of 
using the church edifices at irregular hours, and the 
reason they gave was fear of pollution. This led to 
the almost universal use of the term aristocrat as an 
opprobrious epithet for them and their followers. The 
civil authorities were in most places only too ready 
to banish the nonjuring priests; but they shrank from 
using force, for that would be the signal for civil war. 

These were briefly the facts as laid before the Legis- 
lative. Putting aside all secular business, it began 
its sessions by stirring debates on religious affairs. 
On one side it w^as argued that such conditions involved 
the safety of the state ; since the courts were in the main 
inimical to the Civil Constitution, legal remedies were 
vain ; it would be well, therefore, to force the nonjurors 
into the capital cities of the departments, where they 
could be under surveillance. Further ecclesiastical leg- 
islation, it was clear, must be the first concern of the 
Legislative. The nonconformist clergy must be de- 
prived of all their stipends, unless they could prove that 

chives Parlementaires. XXXV. found guilty of this offence a 

42, recites the use of their reh- penaky amounting to double 

gious assemblies by the refrac- the sum total of their real and 

tories to foment sedition. It personal taxes, 
was proposed to lay upon those 



166 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

they had taken the civil oath. "Their religion," said 
one orator, "consists in counter-revolution. Their God 
is not your God ; their God is beyond the Rhine." 

This idea caught at least a large minority of the Leg- 
islative, and Fauchet received close attention when he 
denounced the nonjurors as a traitorous, bloodthirsty 
pack, concocting underhand schemes, furthering the 
emigration of prelates and aristocrats, and secretly re- 
mitting French treasure across the borders to be spent 
in efforts to overthrow the existing government and 
undo the Revolution. He proposed that money sup- 
port in every form be withdrawn from all ecclesiastics 
who would not take the oath, except from the aged 
and infirm; the nonjurors might worship in their own 
hired halls, but not in the churches; and if they dis- 
turbed the public worship in any way they might be 
imprisoned. 

But at first the majority of the Legislative were for 
moderation. In the main they were still royalists, and 
they could not imagine a monarchical state without a 
state religion. It was with contentment that they heard 
the counter-pleas for broad tolerance and for further 
efforts to smooth the way. Peaceable citizens respect- 
ing the law, it was said, must under the most elemen- 
tary principles of the constitution be let alone, and could 
not be deported from their domiciles without violence 
to the whole character of the Revolution. It was 
Torne, Constitutional bishop of the Cher, who assever- 
ated that refusal of the oath was not a criminal act. 
As long as these implacable and unsociable refractories 
merely held aloof they were well within their rights. 
Sedition, of course, was another matter; and they, like 
all citizens, must take the consequences under the law. 
Let them worship at their own cost, not merely in their 
own buildings, but in the churches at such hours as 



WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 167 

the local directories might determine. Authority could 
not control religious differences, but the Legislative 
might set forth some such plan as reconciling perfect 
religious liberty with the public order. 

Alas! the nonjuring clergy were truly refractory. 
At Caen some hundreds of female furies stoned the 
Constitutional priest, drove him to the sanctuary of his 
altar, and were there proceeding to hang him to the 
sanctuary lamp when, bruised, cut, and almost sense- 
less, he was rescued by the National Guard. In the 
department of Maine-et-Loire, under the instigation of 
the nonjuring priests, armed bands numbering some 
thousands scoured the land, assassinated the Constitu- 
tional priests in their own churches, and hewed down 
the doors of those which had been closed. In the pre- 
vailing hot and growing lust for destruction even secu- 
lar buildings were destroyed. 

In the midst of these excesses, while messenger after 
messenger was bringing news of outrage to the door of 
the Legislative, Gensonnee, a moderate Girondist, finally 
proposed a complete separation of religion and govern- 
ment, and urged a virtual repeal of the Civil Constitu- 
tion. It is likely that the consternation of those who 
had framed it was great; their fine-spun theories, like 
all others not grounded in experience, were now utterly 
discredited. Ere long there arose a clamor, even among 
the Constitutionals themselves, for the right of every 
communion to regulate its own internal affairs without 
government help or interference. ''Why," exclaimed 
De Moy, Constitutional vicar of the church of St. Lau- 
rent in Paris — "why make the religion of Rome Consti- 
tutional at all? Let the nation cease to nominate the 
Roman ministers, and treat Catholics as it does Jews 
and Protestants, who call each their own rabbis and 
pastors. The Roman Catholics should do likewise." 



i68 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Somewhat later he expressed these views in a powerful 
pamphlet, and denounced the Civil Constitution as the 
feet of clay to the image of gold.^ 

Meantime, without the walls of the Assembly discon- 
tent with all ecclesiasticism, of whatever form, was 
rapidly growing. Perfidiously, but successfully, the 
sceptical element far and near confused the public 
mind until tens of thousands could not distinguish be- 
tween ecclesiasticism and Christianity. For both a 
substitute was in preparation. 

Rousseau's doctrine of national boundaries as deter- 
mined by nature, and of the regeneration of man by a 
return to nature, corresponded in a high degree to the 
inarticulate longings which characterized western Eu- 
rope throughout the whole decline of feudalism. The 
one all-sufficient answer, under the monarchies, for any 
deed of violence always was : reasons of state. This 
direful phrase descended to the Rousseau democrats 
in undiminished vigor. The fanatical idealists were 
quite as ready for political and civil violence as for 
religious persecution. The passion for unity and 
homogeneity in territory and institutions was of the 
very essence of revolutionary hearts; spiteful against 
the old ''infamy," and clearly apprehending Pius's 
meaning when he identified himself and Roman Cathol- 
icism in France with the monarchy, the radicals passed 
easily to the concept of fatherland — one not only in 
territory and institutions, but jn a national religion. 
They had identical views with those who justified the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes as a measure, not 
against the heretics, but against rebels; magnifying 
in a high degree the religious sentiment as indispensable 
in life, they asserted that for a perfect nation there must 

^ Bibliotheque Historique de la Revolution, Vol, CXLII., 
quoted in Jervis, p, 192, 



WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 169 

be a national religion, Christian possibly, certainly 
not Roman; in the last resort broad enough, even 
though pagan, to include all Frenchmen; the majority 
having chosen it, all recusants would be traitors. For 
the agitation and support of this doctrine there was at 
hand an institution as old as France itself — that of 
the public festivals, primevally sprung from the cult of 
natural or pagan religions, but incorporated and mod- 
ified into the system of Roman Catholicism by the ap- 
plication of a very thin gloss indeed. 

Under the earlier monarchy, these public ceremonies 
were celebrated by rites of the church in honor of the 
king or of God. The scenic effects were highly elab- 
orate, representing for the most part scriptural sub- 
jects. As years .rolled by the secular influence of 
heathen Rome became predominant in art, letters, and 
law. Even the church was not free from the aesthetic 
power of classicism, and the public festivals were per- 
meated by it. There arose the strangest and most 
fantastic confusion in the public mind between classi- 
cal and scriptural subjects, concerning both persons 
and places. Since the very corner-stone of absolutism 
was the Roman law, secular life in France grew contin- 
uously more and more classical in its judgments and 
ideals, until beneath the veneer of ecclesiasticism it was 
the heir, not only of Graeco-Roman morals and learning 
in their best pagan form, but of Graeco-Roman vices 
too; so-called good society, it has been charged, culti- 
vated certain of the shocking and unnatural, nameless 
and semi-oriental practices which characterized the se- 
cret cults of both Athens and Rome in the years of 
their decline. This influence was felt in the festivals, 
which too often were thus either turned into or accom- 
panied by orgies and saturnalia. At the best they be- 
came more secular than religious, even on the high 



I70 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

feast days of the church. The thought of eliminating 
the religious element entirely was therefore not far 
fetched. The first proposal to that effect was made 
anonymously in 1789, that an annual secular holi- 
day should be decreed in honor of the Fourth of 
August. 

The project received no general or spontaneous sup- 
port, but Talleyrand, in his memoir on public instruc- 
tion dated September tenth, 1791, dwells at length on 
the advantage of national festivals like those of anti- 
quity, stripped, however, of all religious character or 
significance. Their aim should be purely moral — that 
is, of all except two, recurring annually, to confirm lib- 
erty under law and equality, on July fourteenth and 
August fourth; the others should not be periodical. 
Appointed and celebrated according to the needs of a 
free people to commemorate any event which might 
confirm the precept most needed at the moment, they 
should be adorned with all the human brilliancy which 
the fine arts, music, the stage, contests of strength and 
skill and splendid prizes for success could call forth — 
to render better and happier the aged by recollection, 
the young men by triumph, the children by expectation. 

A similar paper on the same topic was written by Ca- 
banis for Mirabeau ; but, on account of his death, it was 
never delivered by the great orator, or even used in any 
way by him for the basis of a speech, as was his custom. 
This essay takes the matter even more seriously. The 
practice of liberty being complicated and difficult, provi- 
sion must be made for all of man's desires, physical and 
moral. The physical wants of man are easily supplied, 
but his moral cravings for sympathy and friendship, 
his devotion to country, the gratification of all the sweet, 
ennobling yearnings which make for humanity, how 
shall these be satisfied? Religion neglects the wants 



. WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 171 

of "here below," preaching self-denial, renunciation, 
and solitude for the sake of closer companionship with 
God. In this majestic thought the state can have 
no share; the object of national festivals must be far 
different — viz., the gratification of human longings, the 
furtherance of mirth, joy, and contentment, the wor- 
ship of liberty, the worship of law. Such documents 
as these two, though not widely circulated, expressed 
the common mind and to some extent formed it. 

But the fatal error of French thought was so in- 
grained into every religious and philosophic sect that 
when the great Festival of Federation, as it was called, 
was celebrated in Paris on July fourteenth, 1790, by 
six hundred thousand persons, Talleyrand, as Bishop 
of Autun, said mass before the assembled multitude. 
The numerous celebrations throughout the country 
were also of a religious character; the Constitutional 
clergy marched first to the "altar of the country," 
and after them the National Guard. Yet it would 
be altogether wrong to consider the holiday as hav- 
ing had a religious character beyond its having 
preserved in the celebration an outward respect for 
religion. The local reunions and the general assem- 
bling of like-minded men throughout and from all 
parts of France certainly produced an enormous ef- 
fect in unifying and consolidating the movement of 
the Revolution. The oath to the constitution gave 
solemnity to the whole. Enthusiasm caught the vast 
multitudes, and it was not without reason that recourse 
was had again and again to similar celebrations for 
the rousing and strengthening of patriotism. The 
festivals of the Revolution became a fact of the first 
importance, for they supplied one element of wor- 
ship, the common assembling of men ; at the same time 
they insidiously directed the quasi-religious enthusiasm 



172 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

of the multitude toward the idea of country as a sub- 
stitute for God. 

The love of pageantry had displayed itself a month 
earlier, on June nineteenth, 1790, when the Baron Ana- 
charsis Cloots of Cleves presented himself before the 
bar of the Assembly at the head of a deputation com- 
prising men of some twenty different countries, each in 
his particular national costume, that they might con- 
gratulate France on the fall of despotism. This scene 
has always been represented as theatrical and absurd ; in 
reality it w^as effective and impressive both among those 
present and the people at large. It was the precursor of 
numerous minor civic celebrations in and about Paris, 
and of a considerable number in the provinces. All 
these were destitute of religious character — utterly so. 
One of the common mottoes displayed on the banners 
was Requiescat infernis, i. e., the aristocracy; and the 
favorite symbol was the torch of liberty. This move- 
ment made rapid progress and within a year culminated 
in what might be called a truly national festival. 

In 1778 the Paris clergy had refused burial to the 
remains of Voltaire, and by permission of the min- 
istry they were buried at the Abbey of Sellieres in 
Champagne. In 1791 this property, confiscated and 
sequestered a year earlier, was sold to a private person. 
Several requests were made that the body be brought to 
Paris, and on May eighth the Assembly so ordered ; on 
the thirty-first they decreed a public funeral and the de- 
posit of the remains in the Church of St. Genevieve, 
which had been secularized as a Walhalla or Pantheon 
for the great men of France. The directory of the De- 
partment of Paris was charged Avith arrangements and 
details; it in turn appealed to the city wards, and they 
appointed a committee representative of the capital. 
This aroused a storm of fierce, indignant opposition 



WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 173 

among pious people; many of the clerical and lay ad- 
herents of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy joining 
in a powerful protest. The charge — now, alas ! only too 
true — was flatly made that the friends of the Constitu- 
tion were no longer the friends of religion. But noth- 
ing could call a halt. A superb catafalque forty feet in 
height, designed by David and made of bronze, con- 
veyed the body toward Paris stage by stage, amid the 
acclamation of the thronging populace. An enormous 
and costly ceremony was arranged at the metropolis, 
and carried through in spite of tempestuous rain. On 
July eleventh the corpse was deposited in the Pantheon 
with honors of parade, eloquence, and solemnity such 
as recall nothing short of an apotheosis.^ 

Nothing illuminates the swift secularization of 
French society, or at least a large stratum of it, like the 
contemporary accounts of Voltaire's mortuary prog- 
ress. There is no reason to suppose that the circum- 
stances would have been substantially different in any 
other part of the land. The coffin was opened at 
Romilly and the features were found to be unmarred, 
scarcely more ghastly than in life. Fathers, mothers, 
young men, maidens, and children heaped garlands 
about the bier as they gazed a moment in tearful silence 
and passed on. As the procession moved from place 
to place, it was headed by the village mayors in full 
civic costume, and long files of national guards, with 
branches of oak and laurel in the muzzles of their mus- 
kets, surrounded the funeral chariot. Thousands of 
pilgrims flocked from far and near, many touched the 
sarcophagus with their kerchiefs and then devoutly 
kissed the fabric, now something sacred, to be stored 
up as a cherished keepsake. 

^ The original papers may be found in Robinet, Mouvement 
Religieux a Paris, 1789-1801, I. 527, 



174 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

In hamlet after hamlet triumphal arches were erected 
over the highway at the entrance, and children in white 
strewed the streets with roses, jasmine, and amaranth, 
moving rhythmically to soft strains of music from 
choruses and bands of rustic players. Throughout the 
countryside the idolatry of ecclesiastical relics was 
transferred to those of the secular saint. In the out- 
skirts of Paris the throngs were immense, and cries of 
chastened gladness resounded from every side as the 
remains were carried to the site of the Bastille. There, 
on a pile constructed from the ancient ruins and 
adorned with myrtle could be read the inscription: 
"Voltaire, on the spot where tyranny enchained thee 
receive the homage of the fatherland." For the night 
was set a guard of honor, twelve hundred ''Voltairians," 
professors of the rising cult. As the masses thronged 
to gaze, a priest in one of the groups cried out in bitter- 
ness : ''O God, thou shalt be avenged!" The quick re- 
joinder was a cheer for the mayor and citizens of Rom- 
illy, "who have preserved for us the body of Voltaire." 

Next day the line of march was thronged with a vast 
concourse, whose curiosity and enthusiasm not even 
the wrath of the elements could check. In the proces- 
sion were companies of soldiers, of Jacobins, of arti- 
sans, of men from the St. Antoine quarter carrying the 
banner riddled at the taking of the Bastille, of students, 
of provincial citizens, of the workmen who razed the 
Bastille, of members of the Academy and literary 
guilds, of magistrates, ministers, and deputies. There 
were also rank on rank of players and artists, repre- 
senting the stage, sculpture, and painting. Among 
the emblems borne aloft were busts of Mirabeau, 
Rousseau, Franklin, and Desilles ;^ a model of the Bas- 

^ Desilles was the young offi- Nancy who besought his fel- 
cer in a mutinous regiment at lows not to fire on the troops 



WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 175 

tille; a shelf of Voltaire's works given by Beaumar- 
chais; and banners with clever inscriptions and de- 
vices. Among the ranks was one composed of Charles 
Villette with his wife and little daughter, the family 
of Voltaire, and another formed by the Galas sisters. 
The catafalque was superb. Above the sarcophagus 
was a canopy on which reposed a half-reclining figure 
of the philosopher, over whose head Immortality held a 
crown of stars ; from vases at each corner blazed the 
flames of delicate perfumes. ''To the Manes of Vol- 
taire," ran the inscription on the front; that opposite 
was: *'He defended Galas, Sirven, La Barre, Mont- 
bailly" ^ ; on one of the two sides, "He fought atheists 
and fanatics, he reclaimed the rights of man against 
slavery and feudalism" ; on the other, "Poet, historian, 
philosopher, he enlarged the human mind and taught 
that it should be free." 

A pause was made before the house where the sage 
had last resided on the quay of the Theatins, now the 
quay Voltaire. There the catafalque was in full view 
of the Tuileries windows. Perhaps the royal captives 
saw what occurred. Mme. Villette, adoptive daugh- 
ter of Voltaire, advanced toward the car, greeted the 
statue, and dedicating her child to her divinity, "her 

of Boiiille which had been sent way. Both were falsel}' charged 

to quell the insurrection. Find- with the murder of Montbailly's 

ing his plea of fraternity in aged but sottish mother, who 

vain, he threw himself in front appears to have died in a 

of the guns of his own men, drunken stupor. The son was 

and fell mortally wounded. The executed, after mutilation. The 

Assembly in 1790 formally daughter-in-law, after long im- 

voted that he had deserved well prisonment, escaped death by 

of his country, and his man- the personal intervention of 

hood was widely celebrated Voltaire with the chancellor 

both in the pulpit and on the who reviewed the case and, all 

stage. too late, pronounced both the 

^ The case of the Montbaillys, victims innocent. The date 

husband and wife, was a sim- was 1770. See Voltaire, Oeu- 

ple miscarriage of justice, with- vres Completes (ed. Moland), 

out reference to religion in any XXVIII. 429 and XXX. 577. 



176 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

papa great man," fell in a rapture amid the wild din of 
the trumpets playing a funeral march and the chanting 
of the choirs. It was ten at night when, under the glare 
of flickering torches, the remains were solemnly de- 
posited in the Pantheon, to remain forever ! Less than 
the time reckoned as a generation of men had elapsed 
when they were violently torn from the stately tomb 
and cast with quicklime into an unmarked, unhallowed, 
and unknown grave. Yet at the moment Voltaire 
ruled supreme in the "diocese of free thought," a cir- 
cumscription widening with every hour. Men by scores 
of thousands believed that at last theology and philos- 
ophy were divorced; they saw and were drawn to the 
adoration of human grandeur as a substitute for divine. 
Now, as then, rationalists mark that day as the deifi- 
cation of the human reason. The broad highway to 
blasphemy and scandal was thenceforth opened wide, 
and thousands thronged to enter it. 



XI 

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 



XI 

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 

THE monasteries of France were an Ultramontane 
bulwark quite as formidable as the prelacy. Yet 
at the outbreak of the Revolution they had a far 
stronger resemblance to a stolid, passive earthwork than 
to an aggressive fire-spitting fortress. The first at- 
tacks upon these bastions, as made in the decree of 
February thirteenth, 1790, only rendered them the 
stronger, by reason of the iron which entered into 
their mass, as it were. Under the old monarchy nei- 
ther monk nor nun had any standing before the law, 
except as the law enforced the vows of chastity, pov- 
erty, and obedience. They could neither marry, in- 
herit, nor make testamentary disposition of property; 
fugitives could be returned by force to the monasteries 
and nunneries from which they had escaped. The 
Revolution began, as we have elsewhere noted, by dis- 
pensing with the validity of monastic vows and for- 
bidding any further administration of such oaths, 
under penalty of suppressing the establishment where 
they were taken. Monks and nuns could leave their 
monasteries by making a simple declaration of their 
desire before the nearest municipal authorities. In 
that case they would receive a ''suitable" pension. 
Monks who desired to continue their secluded life were 
assigned to certain establishments; nuns might remain 
where they were if they so desired, ^'Nothing is to be 

179 



i8o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

changed," ran the decree, "in respect to the houses con- 
cerned with pubHc education or with regard to charit- 
able estabhshments until a course regarding these mat- 
ters has been decided upon," 

The existence of monasteries, nunneries, and con- 
vents was thereafter neither legal nor illegal, but their 
inmates were completely emancipated from "civil 
death." Other measures, six in all, were taken subse- 
quently, but they were purely administrative. While 
considerable numbers of the "regulars" abandoned 
their cells, yet the majority held their vows to be bind- 
ing, continued wearing their distinctive garb, and re- 
mained in the exercise of their monastic functions, not 
loosely and listlessly, as of old, but with zeal and en- 
ergy, because they had now a moral stimulus. They 
appear to have undergone a corresponding spiritual 
reform, to have cleansed their hearts and mended their 
ways. They were, of course, nonjurors. 

This was the situation until after the king's forced 
return from Varennes. On August fourth Legrand, a 
deputy further unknown to fame, reported in the name 
of the Ecclesiastical Committee that conditions in north- 
ern France had become intolerable. With the time- 
honored plea of the public safety, used in all its usurpa- 
tions by the old monarchy, he proposed that all active 
members of religious orders should immediately pre- 
sent themselves at Paris for assignment to safe quar- 
ters; that all the rest, together with the nonjuring 
parish priests, be banished to a distance of thirty 
leagues, about eighty-five miles, from the frontiers of 
their departments. The proposition was not enthusi- 
astically received by the Constituent, which was really 
aghast at the consequences of its own course, and afraid 
of such wholesale proscription ; after much bitter talk the 
report was relegated to the obscurity of the committee- 



THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION i8i 

rooms. ^ It was therefore in connection with ecclesi- 
astical affairs that the terrible theory of ''public safety" 
dear to the old monarchy again lifted its direful head. 
It was on the plea of the ''public safety" that severe 
penalties were almost at once enacted against all 
Frenchmen who should endeavor to leave France, even 
the king. Thus far the emigrants, successful or un- 
successful, were in the main prelates, aristocrats, and 
members of the royal family. 

Meantime political affairs, both internal and exter- 
nal, were growing more and more entangled. On 
July sixteenth a company of "patriots," including Dan- 
ton and Camille Desmoulins, who desired to memorial- 
ize the legislature in a monster petition for the king's 
demission, unwittingly involved themselves in a riot on 
the Champ de Mars. The royalists on that day mas- 
sacred hundreds of innocent persons, and the republi- 
cans bore all the blame. The moderate royalists grew 
stronger and stronger during the summer, and when, 
on October sixth, Louis presented himself before the 
legislature he was received with wild enthusiasm. His 
smooth speech and brazen forehead had a soothing 
effect throughout France, and except for the religious 
chaos there was a marked improvement in the relations 
of the crown and the legislature. On the thirty-first the 
Comte de Provence was formally summoned to reenter 
France under penalty of losing his hereditary rights. 
On November ninth Frenchmen foregathering and col- 
loguing in foreign lands were declared to have placed 
themselves under suspicion of treason, and were threat- 
ened with loss of all rights if they did not return home 
before January first, 1792. The king dared to veto 
this enactment, but summoned his brothers to return. 
They mockingly refused. 

^ Moniteur, August fourth, 1791. 



1 82 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

The absolute monarchies of Europe now stood aghast. 
During the earlier years of the Revolution they were 
like crows about carrion; but now the carcass of Po- 
land was nearly dismembered, and further aggression 
upon the Orient was postponed. As far as the French 
nation knew, the political reforms inaugurated by them 
had aroused elsewhere a curiosity which was in the 
main sympathetic and in some instances enthusiastic. 
But the plainest Frenchman understood that from the 
moment of Louis's arrest kings and royal chancelleries 
were furious at the duress put upon him. The influ- 
ence known later as the Girondist, but still styled Jaco- 
bin, was now paramount in the Legislative, and was 
steadily growing in France.^ These men and their 
friends were outraged by the reception of the emi- 
grants at foreign courts and the success of emigrant 
efforts in forming an armed resistance to France by the 
connivance of rulers in neighboring countries. The 
German-Roman empire, of which Austria was the 
head, was furious at the assaults made by France on 
the feudal rights of German princes in Alsace, de- 
manded the suppression of Jacobinism at Paris, and ex- 
acted the emancipation of the king. Royalists and 
"patriots" throughout France were alike eager for war, 
the former to liberate Louis, the latter to extend the 
Revolution, to array peoples against their absolute 
rulers, and "municipalize" Europe. Robespierre and 
his followers alone dreaded the conflict. The Giron- 

^ At the outset there was no that of Paris. They came from 

essential difference between the nearly every district of France, 

factions of the "Mountain," not especially from the south, 

and when the split actually oc- as has so long been taught, 

curred it had nothing to do See Aulard, La Societe des 

with religion, nor, strictly Jacobins, V. 533, for the volun- 

speaking, with politics. Those tary identification of the Jaco- 

who were finally styled Giron- bins, by themselves, with the 

dins desired a preponderance "Septembriseurs." 
of provincial influence over 



THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 183 

dist ministry was formed, demanded either war or a 
stable peace, and summoned Austria to desist from her 
courses. She retorted by a disdainful refusal. 

What no Frenchman then knew, but what both Robes- 
pierre and Marat suspected and shrewdly followed, 
was the tortuous course of Louis. On December third, 
I79i,''the king of the French, the Constitutional king," 
swearing again and again to support the new constitu- 
tion, civil and ecclesiastical, secretly suggested to Fred- 
erick William of Prussia a European congress, backed 
by armaments, to intervene in French affairs. Austria 
and Prussia drew together to protect absolutist and 
feudal Europe; and Russia, hoping for a free hand in 
Poland, encouraged them. Louis sent a secret agent 
to Vienna disavowing all the procedures of his govern- 
ment, and went in person to the hall of the Legislative 
to propose war. Of all black crimes known to history, 
none could be blacker. With a headlong folly which 
was nothing short of criminal, the formal declaration 
of hostilities w^as made by that fatuous Assembly. 

The first French column which took the field fled 
in panic before the Austrians, but, being themselves un- 
prepared for war, the victors did not follow up their 
advantage, and the French court, during an interval of 
two months in the active operations on the field, put 
forth in secret herculean efforts to stimulate the in- 
vaders of France and inaugurate the counter-revolution 
on the ruins of French defeats. Finally an inkling was 
given of the truth, and suspicions began to dawn in the 
minds of the deputies, who then, and right quickly, 
grew furious and so were ready in their cowardly panic 
for any excesses. They took the hint from a strange 
boldness displayed by Louis in repeated refusals to 
sanction decrees enforcing the Civil Constitution of the 
Clergy. For such a prince to defy such a legislature 



1 84 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

at such a moment in such a matter was indeed por- 
tentous. 

The strides toward rehgious anarchy made by 
France within the two short years from 1791 to 1793 
can be understood only by two considerations : that of 
discord and schism in the church, that of temporary 
concord and union among the radical Rousseauists. 
The solemnities of Christianity had steadily lost their 
meaning, while -those of the fatherland cult were con- 
tinuously arrogating a religious and binding character 
to themselves. To a people rendered incapable of dis- 
tinguishing religious from secular, public from private 
duties, the secular and public obligations they felt so 
strongly were easily erected into a system of worship 
excluding the other. It was not a very long step to 
the festival of Reason. 

On the other hand, the Pope had now announced 
himself as rigid in his position, for he had refused to 
receive a successor to the Cardinal de Bernis on the 
ground that a representative of the Revolution would 
be an apostle of anarchy. His followers therefore 
went on with their resistance, and in consequence the 
leader of the Avignon ^'patriots" was killed. Hun- 
dreds of the faithful were massacred in brutal retalia- 
tion; the murders were committed within the ancient 
palace of the popes on October sixteenth, and, on the 
plea that Avignon was not a part of France until No- 
vember eighth, the murderers were in March of the 
following 3/ear( 1 792) virtually amnestied by the Legis- 
lative. Louis was appalled, but, expecting speedy re- 
lief, he stood firm. The situation was terribly strained, 
and only a single noble voice, that of Andre Chenier, 
the poet, was lifted with fervor to demand that the 
quarrels of priests should thereafter be let alone and 
so ended. But the Legislative did not hearken, and 



THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 185 

continued amid the din of arms to occupy itself with 
ecclesiastical riots, to the exclusion of its regular busi- 
ness. Before the end of its first quarter, on November 
twenty-ninth, at the instigation of one of its fiery and 
unreasonable members, Isnard, it flatly took the utterly 
untenable position that there could no longer be toler- 
ation for nonconformists; that though nonjuror lay- 
men might continue to worship in private places, all 
nonjuring priests should be deprived of their pension, 
and considered ''suspect of sedition and revolt." 

This was the real turning-point of religious affairs. 
The king boldly vetoed the decree on December nine- 
teenth, and the veto, widely discussed as a piece of 
royal effrontery, was in general ignored. The famous 
Constitution of 1791 was thus assassinated in the house 
of its so-called friends. No measure was a law unless 
with the royal assent. By the royal veto every mea- 
sure of the legislature was invalidated. This decree 
therefore was constitutionally null and void. Yet pop- 
ularly it had, and continued to have, great force. Per- 
secution was, if not legalized, at least no longer with- 
out a partial sanction. Riot and bloodshed grew more 
and more frequent. Serious efforts were made at re- 
pression by criminal prosecution, and the x\ssembly ap- 
plauded a suggestion to enforce the constitution with 
the least possible reference to the Constitution of the 
Clergy. But in vain. Reason asserted itself in a few 
quarters by a steadily growing conviction that under 
the existing ecclesiastical charter, with a paid clergy, 
religious liberty was impossible. But reason was no 
longer a guide for the fanatical radicals now ascen- 
dant in the legislature; disdainful of common sense, 
they determined to meet the fanatical priests with fur- 
ther severity. 

The debates on the decrees of November and May 



1 86 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

exhibit how the radical determination to "decathoH- 
cize" France became pivotal to the subsequent secular 
policy of the Revolution. Isnard, though a deputy from 
Provence, the hotbed of extreme radicalism, was him- 
self a Girondist. He argued that seditious priests were 
the worst possible rebels because of their numerous fol- 
lowers and consequent influence. From this they 
should be removed by deportation and punished, like 
other criminals, with rigor and justice. The infliction 
of fitting penalties was in no sense martyrdom, for 
martyrs die for conscience sake, not for offences against 
public order, a class of purely secular transgressions 
which honest men can easily avoid. Not priests alone, 
but all Frenchmen should be forced to take the civic 
oath, for such a measure is the sole preventive of an- 
archy. 'T would punish alike all fanatics, all agitators ; 
such is my creed ; the law is my God ; I have no other. 
I am interested in and inspired by the public welfare, 
and by that alone." ^ This, although it was retracted 
later by the speaker, is the whole matter in a nutshell. 
No obligations of truth or justice in view of the public 
safety, and of this the legislature is the sole judge! 
Frangois de Nantes furnished the corollary in asserting 
that all ecclesiastical agitators were mere hypocrites, 
prompted in reality by political motives, by unswerv- 
ing hatred of the constitution.^ On the other hand, 
there were numerous protests from the departments, 
and one, most notable, from the Paris Directory, a paper 

^ Moniteur, November four- be endangered, I declare to you 

teenth, 1791. This is the same in the name of all France that 

who, two years later, when soon men will be searching on 

president of the Convention, the banks of the Seine to dis- 

hurled at the Paris commune cover whether Paris ever ex- 

the famous threat: "If it isted." See Aulard, Histoire 

should happen by means of Politique, etc., p. 435. 

these recurring riots that the " Jervis, The Galilean Church 

national representation should and the Revolution, p. 193. 



THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 187 

which was probably the work of Talleyrand. It was 
a plea for liberty of worship and a remonstrance 
against intolerance. Such, however, was the general 
contempt of the king's veto that by February, 1792, 
the state of the entire country was deplorable. The 
Minister of the Interior, Cahier-Gerville, was ordered 
to report on it. This he did by frankly acknowledging 
the facts; as the only possible remedy, he appealed for 
obedience to the constitution, including the Civil Con- 
stitution of the Clergy. The report was a confession 
of helplessness, and De Moy's plea for utter disestab- 
lishment, with a complete voluntary system, which was 
speedily published, merely exasperated further the ex- 
tremists of both sides, who desired no reconciliation.^ 

On March nineteenth the Pope issued two briefs, one 
refuting the Constitutional statement of principles, the 
other continuing the powers of the nonjuring bishops, 
and thus perpetuating the orthodox church. In May a 
special committee of twelve on the state of the nation 
reported. Pointing out that since all the nonjurors 
were acting in harmony there must be a conspiracy, 
that not one of the conspirators had been brought to 
justice, and that therefore in the present state of af- 
fairs there was only one possible remedy, its conclusion 
was that all the disaffected priests must be banished. 

This was the signal for an exhibition of the temper 
which now controlled the Constitutionals. With brazen 
effrontery they asserted through their mouthpiece, a 
Constitutional bishop, Ichon by name, that the non- 
jurors were merely traitors, a permanent Austrian com- 
mittee, denouncing by secret propaganda all Constitu- 
tional principles, and that, everywhere throughout 
France. The charge was coincident with the panic 
over the Austrian successes in arms, and the decree of 

* See above, p. 162. 



i88 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

the twenty-seventh, rushed through with headlong 
speed, provided for the banishment of any and all non- 
conformists. Next day, in a state of utter distraction 
over the defeat, treachery, and cowardice of the troops, 
the Legislative declared the country in danger and 
itself the permanent authority. The king's guard was 
then disbanded and a revolutionary army was ordained. 
It seemed a preternatural and suspicious boldness that 
the king should dare to veto this decree of the twenty- 
seventh. His truest friends begged him to yield, but 
he stood defiant as a rock. 

Of all the interesting and instructive comparisons or 
contrasts which could be made between the respective 
courses of the English and French revolutions, sepa- 
rated as they were by a century, none is more instruc- 
tive or more interesting than the differing fates of two 
monarchs, both of whom relied on foreign aid for sup- 
port ecclesiastically and institutionally. The English 
nonjurors wanted James to remain, the Whigs desired 
nothing so much as his flight; the French Ultramon- 
tanes were eager for Louis's escape, the fiery radicals 
were determined either to bend the monarchy or break 
the monarch. Both English and French conservatives 
labored for anarchy in the belief that finally old condi- 
tions would be restored. "Box it about, it will come 
to my father" was the Jacobite password to a chaos 
from which must reemerge the absolutism of James; 
that of the French Ultramontanes, though identical, 
was scarcely a secret, and therefore required no form 
of thieves' patter to conceal it. In the end the refrac- 
tories of both nations got the same lessons : there can 
be no religious liberty without free discussion, and 
there can be no free discussion in a volatile, disorgan- 
ized, and distracted body of representatives, whether 
it be called a free parliament or a Constitutional legis- 



THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 189 

lative ; there can be no civil liberty without perfect reli- 
gious freedom, and this last is utterly inconsistent with 
an Erastian establishnent. 

A careful student of the English Revolution might 
almost have foretold the successive stages of the 
French Revolution. But there was not one. The 
French believed they were working out a new problem 
in a French way, and with few exceptions disdained 
the lessons of English history. Though engaged in 
a work as beneficent as that done in the British Isles at 
the close of the seventeenth century, they avoided no 
shallow, no reef, no whirlpool in their course by means 
of their neighbor's experience. English opinion dis- 
dained them for their indifference, and represented 
their revolution as a series of cataclysms, a judgment 
which has too long imposed on credulous readers. In 
fact, the climax of the French transition, as we have 
reached it, was almost identical with that of the Eng- 
lish; and this in spite of the fact that the Grand Alli- 
ance of William III., being mainly continental, pre- 
vented such direct interference of strangers in the Eng- 
lish Revolution as that which violated French soil and 
roused the French to unreasoning passion. The riots 
which began in London a century earlier were quite as 
menacing as the earliest disorders in Paris; they were 
checked by the approach of a w^ise man, a prince of 
Stuart blood, whose trivial military feats on English 
soil merely put Irish papists, hated foreigners, beyond 
the powder of evil doing. 

The temptation to recount other analogies and con- 
trasts well-nigh innumerable is almost irresistible, but 
perhaps a single one may suffice to fix a landmark of 
human experience. Had not the acquittal of the bish- 
ops clearly foreshadowed religious liberty, there would 
have been in England a cataclysm quite equal to that 



190 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

which was thought to have occurred in France when 
the Legislative, in the name of civil liberty, destroyed 
all hope of religious liberty as it did by the steps it 
took throughout the close of 1791 and the whole of 
1792 to repress a social disorder which was purely 
religious. 

Necessarily matters in France took exactly the turn 
which human passion, whether in England or else- 
where, would have forced them to take under identical 
conditions. The evolution in France was swift and 
terrible, but it was a natural historic evolution for all 
that. It appeared like a cataclysm, but it was a his- 
toric process. The riots of June twentieth and the 
awful day of August tenth were both parts of the fierce 
lawlessness engendered throughout France by the on- 
set of the Legislative and the resistance of the king. 
The first was an awful menace to Louis by the riotous 
populace; the storming of his palace, with the aid of 
the terrible federates or Marseillais, was the fulfilment 
of the threat; the conclusion was his deposition from 
an ofiice he ought to have abdicated long before of his 
own accord. The subsequent massacres of September 
second, wherein, according to the most careful esti- 
mates, about three hundred nonjuring priests foully 
perished, were, though virtually legal, yet in reality the 
foulest assassinations of revolutionary madness.^ 

This marked the final and complete rupture between 
the remnant of disordered government struggling on 
at Paris and the nonjuring Catholics; and although the 
shameful deed took place after the deposition of the 
king, as if in consequence of it, yet in reality it was 
the sequence of events antecedent. The king and royal 
family were imprisoned in the Temple on August thir- 

* See Barruel, Histoire du Clerge, p. 593, for the list 
of the killed. 



THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 191 

teenth. The work of sacking the Tuileries, initiated 
by an insurrection, was recognized as regular and legal 
by the Legislative, and the dregs of Paris society now 
wielded the sceptre. It was felt by the masses that 
P'rance could not now be betrayed by her king, but, on 
the other hand, there was the certainty that all Europe 
would immediately join Austria to compel the Jacobin 
mob of Paris to abdicate. 

The Legislative, however, was committed to Jacobin 
support. An awful w^ar w^as inevitable, men and re- 
sources must be found without a moment's delay. 
There still remained to the nation a quick asset in the 
property of the monasteries. Monks and nuns alike 
had swollen the ranks of the refractory nonjurors, but 
they alone of the ecclesiastics had retained their pos- 
sessions. On August seventeenth the legislature de- 
creed urgency, shut the convents, and put an end to 
monastic life. Next day it suppressed all religious 
orders, even those devoted exclusively to nursing, char- 
ity, and education. Further, and this w^as a measure 
of vital importance in the public mind, it forbade as a 
criminal offence the wearing of all and any monastic 
costumes whatsoever. Finally, all the estates of the 
monasteries were to be sold as national property. 
Women were to receive a small pension without condi- 
tions, but the same restrictions — to wit, the taking of 
the civic oath — were put upon the regular priests as on 
the secular. These measures were coincident with the 
invasion of French soil and the investment of Verdun 
by foreigners — Prussians under French guidance. No 
extreme of retaliation or of injustice was too violent, if 
advocated in the name of public safety. 

This was the spirit which led Marat to call for 
vengeance on the traitors in French prisons before ad- 
vancing to repel the invaders and French traitors at the 



192 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

front. The holocaust of mob vengeance was declared 
a purge; it was a purge in the main of ecclesiastics, 
ruthlessly administered by those who now abhorred 
Christianity in any form. The Legislative feebly dis- 
claimed the responsibility and virtually abdicated. To 
Danton and a dictatorial committee was entrusted the 
national defence. Though the September massacres 
were hateful to Danton, yet nobody was punished.^ 
His energies were successfully directed to organizing 
an army, and though the battle of Valmy, on Septem- 
ber twentieth, was a small affair, yet after it the Prus- 
sians retreated, and such was the moral effect that 
Goethe but formulated European opinion that revolu- 
tionary France could and would resist all interference 
by her neighbors when he declared that a new era 
opened on that day. The Legislative Assembly almost 
at the same hour which saw the Prussians retreat com- 
pleted its work of ecclesiastical legislation by taking 
f rom the parochial authorities the registration of births, 
marriages, and deaths. Vital statistics have since been 
kept by the local secular authorities. This was consid- 

^ The process whereby the coincident with the massacres, 
radicals of Paris extinguished One was splendid, the other 
the influence of the provincial excusable. The events of Au- 
radicals in the legislature was gust were a blow for father- 
gradual. The Jacobins of Paris land and liberty, those of Sep- 
were ostensibly royalist until tember assured their victory. 
1793, and shrewdly cast the Thus, although the massacres 
odium of the king's execution were the work of a wild and 
upon the Girondists. It was not maddened populace, the radi- 
until they expelled Philippe- cals assumed responsibility for 
Egalite from their club and them. When Danton, on March 
turned the tables by proscribing tenth, 1793, described the days 
both him and the Girondists of September as a bloody out- 
that they were recognized as rage he fixed the stigma for all 
republicans. To justify this at- future time on the Jacobins, 
titude they chose to connect Eventually the Girondists prof- 
the events of August tenth and ited by their momentary ob- 
September second as insepara- scuration. See Aulard, La So- 
ble iDecause of the volunteer ciete des Jacobins, V. 533, and 
movement for national defence Histoire Politique, p. 416. 



THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 193 

ered to complete the emancipation of the state from 
church control. 

The National Convention was a very different body 
from its two predecessors. Elected under the consti- 
tution of 1 79 1 as an ''assembly of revision," it marked 
the downfall of all burgher privilege, the sovereign 
control of affairs by democratic-republican opinion. 
Abolishing monarchy and executing the king, it was 
concerned primarily with the defence of the country and 
further purging the state of all traitors at home. These 
ends it sought to gain by revolutionary means, and at 
the earliest moment after appointing revolutionary 
tribunals and executive committees it proceeded to 
carry on the work of complete separation between 
church and state — what is called the ''laicization" of 
France. In this ruthless process it was not content to 
deal with nonjurors, but, openly irreligious, it began 
to attack all worship, including that of the Constitu- 
tionals themselves. 

It was decreed that thenceforth all public servants, 
ecclesiastic and secular, should swear the purely secu- 
lar and political oath — "to maintain to the utmost of 
their power liberty and equality or to die at their post." 
Many of the surviving hierarchy gladly complied, for 
they felt this to be a complete relief from the heretical 
declarations required under the Civil Constitution; 
others declared that since the law emanated from a 
Godless body so perjured and unhallowed as the 
regicide Convention, it must be of the devil and 
an impossible burden to be laid on Christian con- 
science. The leader of the former group was a wise, 
strong man, Abbe fimery, who stuck to his post; 
the other camp followed the violent Abbe Maury, 
now safe in Rome; like their leader, they emigrated. 
For the most part these men, literally by thousands. 



194 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

sought refuge in England as martyrs for conscience 
sake. 

Pius VI. was himself careful not to pronounce on 
the character of the oath, finally explaining, in July, 
1794, that since the Holy See had not declared itself, 
those concerned should examine their consciences in 
regard to swearing, and that no one who had already 
sworn was bound to retract. This inexcusable inde- 
cision, combined with the shocking conduct of the Con- 
vention, completed the schism which shivered the eccle- 
siastical fabric; there were those who had taken both 
oaths and those who had taken neither, while some had 
sworn to one and not to the other. In its mad rage 
the Convention drew no distinctions, and proscribed 
men from each of the four classes; even the Abbe 
Emery was haled before the Bloody Tribunal, and 
barely escaped with his life. For seventeen long 
months he was the ghostly comforter of the sorry and. 
wretched company behind the bars of the Conciergerie, 
and gave the final consolations of religion to scores 
among the terror-stricken groups of men and women 
who daily passed its doors to be murdered by the guil- 
lotine. Meanwhile the Convention was revelling in 
atrocity. 

By the decree of April twenty-fourth, 1793, all eccle- 
siastics, seculars, regulars, brothers lay and menial, 
who had not taken the oath, were banished to French 
Guiana. Leaving the Constitutionals for a short time, 
but most grudgingly, in the enjoyment of their legal 
status, it authorized the marriage of any who so de- 
sired without disturbance of their office. Many con- 
tracted matrimony. They were protected against arro- 
gance by three statutes, passed respectively in July, 
August, and September. The feeling against a priestly 
caste was steadily growing stronger, and there were 



THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 195 

symptoms of a desire to abolish Catholicism utterly in 
all its forms. Even a Constitutional, it was enacted in 
October, if not married could be denounced for ''in- 
civism" like the nonjurors. The guilty were banished 
to the African coast between the twenty-third and 
twenty-eighth degrees of latitude. From September 
onw^ard there were lay burials; local festivals were 
given a distinctly heathen character; many churches 
and sacred vessels were desecrated, and one church 
building at least was transformed into a 'Temple of 
Truth." ^ The course of the sovereign assembly was 
correspondingly a swift descent to hell, in which every 
type of extreme fanatic heathen took his turn at the 
helm and was swept into perdition to make room for 
another, until the engulfing maelstrom was reached and 
the faint-hearted, shallow Robespierre sounded the 
alarm. 

The pleas for the Convention so constantly reiterated 
are all alike pitiful — all except one: it was the in- 
carnation of energy. While it was revelling in polit- 
ical and religious massacre, it was forsooth talking 
philanthropy; while it was gorging itself on the dis- 

^ It is important to note the January eleventh, 1793. A few 
receding pulsations of conser- days later the legates of the 
vatism which were intercalated Convention declared in a proc- 
with the stages of rising irreli- lamation to the Vendeans that 
gion. On November thirteenth, the republic was founded on 
1792, Cambon proposed to abol- the moral system of the gospel, 
ish the support of public On May thirtieth the Fete- 
worship and reduce secular tax- Dieu was publicly celebrated 
ation by the twenty million dol- in Paris without disorder, and 
lars thus to be saved. Robes- in June it was decreed that the 
pierre flouted the idea as an salaries of the ecclesiastics 
attack on public morals, and were a part of the public obli- 
there were threats of rioting. gations. But these acts made 
Danton secured a vote to the no impression. Public atten- 
effect that the Convention had tion was fixed on the ruthless 
never seriously considered such treatment meted out to the re- 
a course, and this was em- fractories by the Convention, 
bodied in another resolution of 



196 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

membered limbs of the social organism, it was dis- 
cussing elementary schools; while it claimed to repre- 
sent the noble principles of 1789, it violated each and 
all of them, covering every crime by the Jesuitical plea 
of the "public safety." The Jacobins were madmen, 
the Girondists were temporizers, and fury conquered. 
The growing tide of desperation showed itself clearly 
within the walls of the riding-school where the Con- 
vention sat, in the treatment of its own members, the 
seventeen Constitutional bishops and twenty-two priests 
who sat as deputies. These all, with one exception, 
were so overawed by the relentless bloodshed in the 
French cities, on the one hand, and by the unparalleled 
deeds of courage shown by the French armies, on the 
other, that they were stunned. Both these extraordi- 
nary phenomena were considered by the people to be 
the work of the same men. They appeared to be in- 
spired and stimulated by Robespierre, Danton, Billaud- 
Varenne, Collot-d'Herbois, Couthon, Marat, Lindet, 
and their ubiquitous proconsuls at home and abroad. 
So profound was this conviction and so widespread, 
that the Constitutionals were fain to accept it as a truth. 
It was this disastrous confusion of ideas which for 
a moment gave an otherwise incomprehensible and irre- 
sistible renown to the clever scoundrels.^ Foolish men 

^ On July twenty-second, 1793, priests, discarding altogether 
the Convention ordered that all the distinction between good 
church bells should be cast into and bad priests so long held, 
cannon, leaving only one for as harlequins and puppets, and 
use in each parish. The surplus all services as superstitious 
church plate had already been and hypocritical. Over the 
coined ; the use of churches for lich-gates of cemeteries Fouche 
secular meetings was common ; inscribed : "Death is eternal 
in consequence, churches and sleep." The church at Roche- 
church services had suffered in fort was transformed into a 
the public esteem. By October, Temple of Truth ; eight priests 
1793, the representatives of the and a Protestant minister un- 
Convention at Abbeville and frocked themselves. The festi- 
Nevers began to stigmatize all val of August tenth in the 



THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 197 

holding important positions made a mad dash to imi- 
tate the all-powerful leaders. On November seventh, 
1793, a cure named Parens began the downward rush, 
renouncing Christianity in a letter to the Convention 
and asking for a pension. His request was granted, 
and at once the miserable Gobel, archbishop enthroned 
at Notre Dame, appeared amidst his vicars and many 
curates to follow the wretched example in words so 
vile that a wild extremist, Chaumette, was moved to 
rise in his place and celebrate the hour when Reason 
had resumed her seat in France. The heathen calen- 
dar of ten-day weeks had been adopted a month ear- 
lier;^ steadily it had been emphasized that priests were 
to marry and Sundays were to be days of labor — en- 
forced, if necessary — while the Decadis were to be 
holidays without labor and heathen festivals. The ses- 
sion of November seventh was a carnival of passion; 
Catholics and Protestants alike renounced their reli- 
gion, and the process of apostatizing would have swept 
the hall but for the sudden appearance of the grave and 
noble Abbe Gregoire, who entered, gained the tribune, 
and, calmly declaring himself a sincere, convinced 
Christian, exposed the motives of the apostacy and in a 
measure stemmed the tide. In a measure only, for 
there was yet one priest who, by permissive decree of 
the Convention, changed his name of Erasmus for that 
of Apostate, and some scores of his kind, including 
thirteen bishops, unfrocked themselves, married, and 
swelled the flood of anarchy and apostacy. 

same year was destitute of all saint and put Brutus in his 

religious observances, and in place as their divinity. 

November M. J. Chenier pro- ^ Romme declared to Gre- 

posed to the Convention that goire that the revolutionary 

the religion of the fatherland calendar had been invented by 

be substituted for that of Christ. him with the express purpose 

In a country village the people of abolishing Sunday. See 

discarded St. Blaise as a patron Memoires de Gregoire, I. 341. 



198 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

The climax of scandal was reached by the machina- 
tions of Chaumette and Hebert; Danton's share in the 
movement remains uncertain. On November tenth, 
1793, a public festival was celebrated in Notre Dame, 
newly consecrated to be a Temple of Reason; at the 
impassioned moment a notorious opera-dancer dressed 
for the part was saluted with the fraternal kiss by the 
president of the legislature. Reason was now the en- 
throned divinity of France.^ Her worship was there- 
upon inaugurated in many other churches throughout 
the land, and those not thus used, or rather desecrated, 
were closed. One with another, the high priests of 
this cult vied in devising and organizing new kinds 
of orgies, and the shocking saturnalia were continu- 
ously celebrated until June eighth, 1794. The only 
mitigation of the horror is that half at least of the depu- 
ties refused all participation in the sacrilege. 

When, after seven long months, the savage voluptu- 
aries who sought their account in social chaos were 
sated, and when revolutionary France could no longer 
endure the espionage and tyranny of its own ma- 
chinery — viz., the committees of observation, of up- 
heaval, of execution, of court-martial — could no longer 
stomach the groans of prisoners from every convent 
building far and wide throughout the desolate land, nor 
endure the reek of blood which flowed from guillotines 
in every market-place — when, in short, hell had no un- 

^ Within twenty days nearly their respective communities, 

twenty-five hundred churches noted for their spotless charac- 

were transformed into Temples ters. In Paris the whole move- 

of Reason. (See A. Gazier, ment partook of the mocking 

!£tudes sur I'Histoire Religieuse contempt so natural to a French 

de la Revolution, p. 314.) It is urban population; throughout 

but just to add that the women the country it was taken seri- 

chosen elsewhere to represent ously and regarded as a part of 

the divinity of Reason were the national defence against Ul- 

not ordinarily hetairse ; as a tramontane reaction. See Au- 

rule, they were the favorites of lard, Culte de la Raison, p. 112. 



THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 199 

spent fury for suffering humanity, then at last the lean 
and bilious Robespierre came forward with the propo- 
sition to restore the Supreme Being to his place, and 
for that purpose instituted another festival, burning an 
effigy of atheism at the stake. ^ 

But the saturnalia connected with the festival of the 
''Eternal" were scarcely less impure than those they 
replaced. The high priest himself offered the bloody 
sacrifice of all wdio could and w^ould dispute his dicta- 
torship. Strangely enough, it was the crazy perver- 
sion of his system by an aged, destitute, visionary bel- 
dame which ruined him. A certain Catherine Theot, 
assisted by the discredited Dom Gerle, celebrated in her 
dreary garret profane rites to the mystery of the 
"mother of God." It was this sacrilege which gave 
the first impulse to Robespierre's overthrow. A domi- 
ciliary visit of the police to this unhallowed shrine dis- 
closed two documents, one an address to the dictator 
as "son of God," the other a certificate of "civism" 

^ Robespierre's confession of when danger is past he alone is 
faith is contained in his ad- in view ; Robespierre is a priest, 
dress to the Convention, made and will never be anything 
on April tenth, 1793. He posed else." Robespierre was sensi- 
as the inexorable, unchanging, tive to such satire, and grimly- 
consistent, upright man. Au- cherished the purpose of re- 
lard (Histoire Politique, p. venge until his radical foes 
423) quotes the pen portrait were destroyed. He was a pro- 
attributed by some to Condor- nounced, avowed proselyte to 
cet, by others to Rabaud : "He the religious system outlined 
has all the marks not of a in Rousseau's Vicar of Savoy, 
religious but of a sectarian secretly cherishing the hope of 
leader ; he has cultivated a rep- imposing that hazy dogma 
utation for austerity, such as upon France as a state creed. 
suggests sanctity ; he climbs The claim is now widely made 
upon a chair to prate of God by French historians that the 
and Providence ; he calls him- Reason cult was dcistic, and 
self a friend of the poor and that of the Supreme Being neo- 
the weak ; he collects a follow- Christian or Unitarian ; but as 
ing of women and feeble- yet adequate proof in support 
minded persons ; he solemnly of the contention is lacking, 
accepts their homage; when Danton certainly was an 
danger threatens he disappears, avowed atheist. 



200 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

issued by the person thus addressed to his old friend 
the whilom Carthusian. These were the weapons first 
used by his enemies to discredit the man whom poor 
old Theot had styled the "Redeemer of mankind, the 
Messiah of the prophecies," and who was the self-con- 
stituted apostle of God and Immortality as a national 
creed. 

Viewed from the standpoint of a state religion, 
Robespierre's deism was a distinct advance on Chau- 
mette's atheism. But the majority of Frenchmen drew 
no distinction whatever between the two; they still 
wanted no other state religion than a reformed and 
regenerate Roman Catholicism ; the numerous minority 
of intelligent liberals had come to understand that any 
state religion or national cult whatsoever meant perse- 
cution and anarchy. Both these parties were weary 
of the unending fiasco. The enemies of Robespierre 
therefore found unlimited support in their effort to 
overwhelm him with mocking contempt. His last ef- 
forts in public life saved both Theot and her acolyte, 
Dom Gerle, from the guillotine ; but, reeling under this 
first blow which associated with him such blasphemous 
absurdities and made him ridiculous, he staggered 
under the next and fell under the last — the scapegoat 
of the Revolution. Posing as the Incorruptible, his 
devotees, chiefly women, undid him by their sentimen- 
tal and distorted acceptance of his claims, and thus 
permitted his destruction by a desperate band of crea- 
tures worse than their victim. The events of Thermi- 
dor were the work of scoundrels, but they put an end 
to national cults for a time, brought about a temporary 
separation of church and state, and caused a marked 
reaction in favor of true religion. 



XII 
A GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 



XII 

A GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 

AMONG the ''patriots" and generally, throughout 
Jr\. the Terror, a blind, unquestioning loyalty to the 
system of the Convention was expressed by the newly 
coined term ''civism." To be accused of ''incivism" by 
undoubted terrorists was equivalent to attainder, with 
the penalty of death, outlawry, or exile. This accusa- 
tion was the murderous weapon which fanatic radicals 
used throughout the term of horrors to destroy priests 
of every kind. Many of the Constitutionals, finding 
their position of functionaries no protection, but rather 
the contrary, since they were plain targets for infidels, 
recanted and faced the guillotine as orthodox papists. 
This was particularly true of those sentenced to the 
Conciergerie.^ The utterly ferocious edicts of March 
seventeenth, xA^pril twenty-first, and October twenty- 
third, 1793, had gone far to amalgamate once more the 
earnest Christian men of all creeds, for the edicts virtu- 
ally regarded piety as ''incivism," and subjected those 
who harbored priests to the penalties enacted against 
their guests. 

All who had emigrated or who were found either 
with foreign passports or with "counter-revolutionary 
badges," or who by hiding in France sought to avoid 
banishment, were to be shot within twenty-four hours. 

^ See the letter of Emery to the Pope, given in Theiner, 
Documents Inedits, I, 441. 

203 



204 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

All who desired to make clear their "civism" were re- 
quired to be spies and informers, and those who in 
pity protected fugitives were considered as partakers 
in crime. The rigorous execution of the laws collected 
thousands for banishment; but since the French flag 
was no longer safe at sea, the vessels on which they 
were crowded could not sail except in a few instances. 
The prison-ships therefore lay indefinitely off St.- 
Malo, Rochefort, and Aix.^ It is impossible to say 
which suffered the worse fate — those who, in spite of 
British cruisers, reached the torrid, malarial shores of 
Africa and French Guiana, or the far greater number 
who endured buffetings, starvation, and the horrors 
of pestilence between decks in the craft that idly rocked 
in French roadsteads. Six hundred of the latter are 
known to have rendered up the ghost within a sin- 
gle year; the atrocities of their jailers are indescrib- 
able. 

But the majority of the attainted class threw them- 
selves on the fidelity of their friendly parishioners. 
Thousands were provided with safe and comfortable 
hiding-places at home, and thousands escaped from 
France. Two thousand of the voluntary exiles sought 
refuge in the Papal States ; they were treated with be- 
nevolence, and enjoyed a liberal hospitality. About 
the same number were distributed throughout the vari- 
ous dioceses of Spain, where likewise the archbishops 
and bishops vied one with another in generosity. In the 
Austrian portion of the Netherlands — what is now Bel- 
gium — great numbers were likewise entertained, and 
it is related that in Switzerland the refugees were re- 
ceived as household guests of the peasantry, the daugh- 

^ For Carrier's report on this Salut Public, VII. 286. Those 

subject, see Documents Inedits in his charge were sent to the 

sur I'Histoire de France. Re- dungeons of Mont-Saint-Mi- 

cueil des Actes du Comite de chel. 



GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 205 

ters of the host vacating their chambers and taking- 
places as servants to support the added expense. But 
there is no more beautiful page in the history of hu- 
manity than that which records the reception and treat- 
ment of the French emigrant clergy in England. Dif- 
fering radically in every point from their hosts, except 
that of their common Christianity, the Ultramontane 
refugees were treated like brothers. About five thou- 
sand were lodged, clothed, and fed, under no restric- 
tions of any sort except that proselytism was discour- 
aged. The monthly outlay for their entertainment 
rose as high as forty thousand dollars, and about four 
hundred thousand dollars all told were raised by pri- 
vate subscriptions and public collections.^ 

Among those who took the Convention oath to main- 
tain liberty and equality by far the most conspicuous 
was that M. ;£mery who was the ghostly father of the 
poor souls incarcerated at the Conciergerie. From the 
extended account of his life which he has given ^ we 
learn that while he and others composing a new class 
of conformists were considered as schismatic and des- 
picable, at first by the emigrant priests and finally by 
the Pope himself, yet the people of France were not 
so minded. In many scattered places the sacraments 
were administered and worship maintained by them 
according to orthodox standards. And this situation 
continued down to the Concordat of Napoleon. 

There was thus a substantial body of Ultramontanes 
ministering regularly in important places during the 
years of dominant atheism. Satisfied merely to be un- 
molested, these men were the strictly spiritual com- 
forters and guides they should have been. Like the 

' See Tervis, The Gallican Meric, Histoire de M. :^mery, 

Church and the Revolution, p. I. 373, for the argument of the 

222. , latter in a letter to Romeux. 

^ Vie de M. Emery. See also 



2o6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Abbe ;Emery, they received the retractions of repen- 
tant Constitutionals, giving absolution and comfort to 
them and to thousands of the faithful. M. fimery, 
charged with ''incivism" by enemies, but preserved 
from the mockery of trial by friends, roused his fellow- 
prisoners to repentance, strengthened the faith of the 
wavering, and supported the weak on the eve of their 
execution. He conducted four of the Constitutional 
bishops — Lamourette, Fauchet, Montault, and Savines 
— back into the fold. Had the fugitive Ultramontanes 
behaved with the same discretion and Christian charity, 
the results of Thermidor would have been far different 
from what they were. But the absentees, supported 
by Rome, poisoned the arrows of their wit and logic 
with a bitterness of hatred corresponding to that of the 
triumphant Convention, and were ready for every rash 
extreme of language and conduct as soon as circum- 
stances permitted their return. 

The typical instance of the faithful Constitutional is, 
of course, Gregoire. It must not for a moment be 
imagined, in consequence of certain dramatic scenes in 
his life already recounted, that he stood alone. Far 
from it. His numerous associates, like the old Catho- 
lics of modern Germany, stood firm in their protest 
against papal control of temporalities, and steadily 
denounced the corruptions of the papal court. They 
ministered in many churches and regularly performed 
their pastoral duties in a spirit of humble but faithful 
devotion. It is not possible to form any estimate 
as to the number of their adherents, but their flocks 
were at least as numerous as those of the conforminsr' 
Ultramontanes. Like Gregoire, they asserted their 
Christian faith in season and out of season. To the 
hail of calumnies rained upon them they answered 
nothing and went their quiet way, enduring every form 



GLIAIPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 207 

of persecution, even to martyrdom, without flinching". 
They were neither irascible nor contentious. 

The Jacobins brought the charge against them of seek- 
ing to "christianize the Revolution" ^ as a crime. They 
gloried in it, and from among the most violent radicals 
made converts not a few. Those very persons later 
on became blind devotees, and lived to throw in Gre- 
goire's face the reproach that he had remained ''too 
much a republican." Throughout the reign of cruelty 
and delirium Gregoire and a few faithful friends regu- 
larly attended the sessions of the Convention, noting 
every turn and coolly awaiting their opportunity. It 
could not long be postponed, and the Bishop of Blois 
finally revised the discourse he had long since prepared 
on liberty of worship. The organ of the Constitu- 
tionals, "Annales de la Religion," remains in several 
files to witness their high character taken as a body. 
The leader and his forces were ready for the coming 
emergency. 

Unfortunately, no historical generalization is strictly 
true. The madness of radicalism, whether atheistic or 
deistic, was not fomented in direct ratio by the menace 
from without to French national life and independence. 
By the middle of 1794 the national existence was not 
in any degree threatened. Civil war in the west was 
temporarily ended by the exploits of Kleber and Mon- 
ceau in the Vendee; the federal and royalist insurrec- 
tions of the east and south were crushed in the 
victories which culminated at Toulon. The foreign in- 
vaders had been driven over the Rhine, and Alsace was 
safe. Yet there was no end to radical ferocity. Like 
Kronos in the fable, the Revolution had successively 
swallovv^ed its children ; the orthodox church, the Eras- 
tian Constitution of the Clergy, the irreligious Danton- 

* Memoires, II. 52. 



208 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



ists had all been engulfed in chaos. One single feeble 
guarantee of personal safety and liberty remained : the 
revolutionary tribunal still demanded written proofs 
and living witnesses, at least in form, for the condem- 
nation of those haled before it. On June twelfth (24 
Prairial),by Robespierre's behest, this one slender safe- 
guard was swept away, and, as has been said, a new 
Terror was organized within the old. This did not 
pass unnoticed by guilty souls ; the affair of Catherine 
Theot opened wide the door, Thermidor was the result. 
Once again chaos engulfed its ov/n, and left nothing 
but a last vile remnant behind.^ 

The Thermidorians were a degraded sort of Robes- 
pierrists : Tallien,Barras, Freron, Merlin de Thionville, 
Fouche, Thibaudeau, Barere were the leaders. They 
ended the Terror in Paris, for the prisons were gradu- 



^ Scattered throughout the 
ninth volume of the Acts of 
the Committee of Public Safety 
may be found letters from the 
conventional envoys in the 
provinces which indicate a cer- 
tain cowardice on their part 
when brought face to face with 
tiie genuine piety of the people. 
Their ruthless efforts to "de- 
christianize" were in many 
places fruitless. Churches were 
kept open, the services were 
fairly regular, the church bell 
rang. In one case the popu- 
lace rose in frenzy against the 
agents of the Convention, and 
forced them to drink holy 
water. Even when the civic 
festivals were celebrated, Te 
Deums were chanted as part of 
the programme. It is not en- 
tirely clear whether these Cath- 
olic heroes of the provinces 
were Constitutionals or Ul tra- 
montanes, but it is certain that, 
while some effort was spas- 



modically exerted to treat the 
former with a fair considera- 
tion, in the main no distinction 
whatever was drawn. The 
priests of both camps were re- 
garded as fomenters of sedi- 
tion, and under the plea that in 
most cases, at least, religious 
assemblies were subterfuges for 
the meeting of traitors, the 
Convention agents, wherever 
they dared, included in their 
denunciations all priests, not 
excepting Protestant ministers. 
While it is true that the avowed 
policy of the Convention, as 
stated again and again on the 
floor of its hall, was intended to 
be conciliatory to all French- 
men of any and every faith, it 
is equally true that it was only 
under intimidation that its 
agents were actually fair- 
minded and moderate. Their 
violence was boundless, their 
watchword was the dangerous 
phrase, "public safety." 



GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 209 

ally delivered, and the guillotine at once ceased from 
the shedding- of blood. But while in political matters 
they quickly divided into a right and a left, yet in reli- 
gious matters the whole party was revolutionary to the 
core, and not a single one of the Draconian statutes 
against religious liberty was repealed. The force of 
circumstances compelled a grudging moderation. The 
Jacobin club was closed until it purged itself and dis- 
avowed Robespierre; renewing its sessions, it soon 
again exhibited something of the old fierce radical tem- 
per, and was permanently closed. In the irreconcilable 
commune of Paris was substituted for the old a new 
police administration composed of chosen moderates. 
The radical representatives of the Convention who had 
been sent to control the armies in the field and to over- 
see every department of local administration in the land 
were replaced by new men. The terrible revolutionary 
central committee was completely reorganized. The 
old system remained in form, but was thoroughly 
changed in character. This so-called revolutionary 
government survived until the Convention was re- 
placed by the Directory. 

The moderates or revolutionaries who had formed a 
coalition with the extreme radicals of the Mountain, 
the former terrorists, now struggled continuously for 
mild measures, and were finally successful. But they 
had always to reckon with the embittered fanatics, and 
their progress was slow. Beyond the limits of Paris 
the prisons remained gorged with hundreds of priests, 
juror and nonjuror alike, doomed to transportation; 
thousands more were under official supervision. For 
more than a year the prisoners were subjected to every 
form of indignity and persecution, kept in close asso- 
ciation with the vilest criminals, starved, manacled, 
and even executed without process of law. Within a 



2IO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

few months nearly half of the poor victims were dead 
under the agonies of suffering to which they were 
doomed. 

But the martyrs were no longer without advocates 
in the legislature : once more and with glowing logic 
the noble Gregoire began to plead the cause of reli- 
gious liberty, nor did he feel the slightest tremor before 
the yells and execrations of the bedlamites among 
the deputies who opposed him. His one repeated cry 
was for complete liberty of thought and worship, a 
total emancipation of religion from the tyranny of the 
state. His most powerful effort was that speech which 
he had ready for the decisive moment. It was deliv- 
ered on December twenty-first, 1794, and immediately 
thereafter widely distributed throughout the country in 
pamphlet form.^ The contents of this document re- 
acted vigorously on public opinion, and finally served 
to cement the elements of a sane and wholesome feel- 
ing for thorough reforms in existing conditions. In 
February, 1795, from about four hundred priests who 
had been imprisoned in the departments less than a 
hundred survived, and these were liberated. 

In the introduction to his pamphlet Gregoire de- 
clared that, having been calumniated in the past for 
insisting on toleration for Jews, Protestants, and Ana- 
baptists, he had vowed to denounce all oppressors, and 
that none were more intolerable than those who, having 
applauded atheism at the bar of the Convention, could 
not forgive a man for holding the same religious prin- 
ciples as those of Pascal and Fenelon. Soon after he 
issued a pastoral of the same tenor, advocating the 
reestablishment of worship. As a result of his agita- 
tion, the fanatical radicals found no support for their 

^ The text of this speech may Religieuse de la Revolution 
be found in Gazier, Histoire Frangaise, p. 341. 



GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 211 

indignant protests. With Paris thus in equihbrium, the 
departments soon made themselves heard, and Boissy 
d'Anglas, Protestant by origin but infidel by profes- 
sion, demanded, in the name of the three all-powerful 
committees — of Public Welfare, of General Safetv, and 
of Legislation — that "all citizens be permitted to wor- 
ship with whatever ceremonies their own taste and 
judgment approved." He mercilessly exposed the 
errors of persecuting atheism, and it was finally de- 
creed, on February twenty-first, 1795, that all public 
support, pensions, salaries, or the use of public build- 
ings, be withdrawn; that wdthin such edifices as were 
set apart for the purpose all forms of worship should 
be unmolested.^ 

Formally this law was not to be interpreted as con- 
flicting wath that which required the oath to maintain 
liberty and equality; this was very significant, since it 
maimed the principle and left a vent for the persecut- 
ing temper of the radicals. But otherwise it was a 
remarkable statute as regards its language. Would that 
it had expressed the national purpose ! Its short-lived 
validity accomplished something, but the ineradicable 
propensity of mankind to unload every burden possible 
upon the social organization was, and is, nowhere so 
strong as among the French. It is the most dangerous 
survival of the primeval curse. Yet France was pas- 
sionately eager for momentary relief, and ready, for 
the sake of a respite from galling fetters, to abandon 
the public crib for a time. 

Referring to the principles laid down in the Declara- 
tion of the Rights of Man and in the constitution, it was 
enacted by the decree that all worship should be unmo- 
lested and might be celebrated, at the cost of the par- 
ticipants, in places without external marks of distinc- 

^ The text of this law is most accessible in Gazier, p. 255. 



212 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

tion, hired by the congregations occupying them. There 
was to be no ecclesiastical garb, no public ceremony, no 
public summons to any exercise. Every gathering was 
subject to state supervision, but only for the guarantee 
of public safety by the police. This was another phrase 
destined to notoriety in the next epoch. One of the 
most striking paragraphs of the decree forbade the 
accumulations of endowments for the support of wor- 
ship. France had seen the disasters consequent upon 
mortmain, secular and ecclesiastical; the Convention 
was grim in its determination that they should not 
again overtake remote generations. 

As a consequence of this remarkable series of enact- 
ments, persecution did not cease even for a moment; 
wherever it was possible, the Jacobin authorities stood 
on legal technicalities, which were easily discoverable 
among the swollen, volumes of legislation enacted by 
the irresponsible revolutionary assemblies; contradic- 
tions were on every page, and the most wary could not 
avoid the innumerable pitfalls. 

Thus ostensibly was accomplished in theory what 
had been the aim of a few careful observers and pro- 
found thinkers for years past: the divorce of state 
and church. To this hour it is claimed that the Revo- 
lution actually inaugurated religious liberty in France, 
and that wicked men overthrew the beneficent institu- 
tions erected to protect it. The matter is worthy of 
careful examination. The impulse to this momentous 
act was complex. We have noted the poet call of 
Andre Chenier and the prophetic fire of Gregoire. 
Both might have had no results except for the entangle- 
ment in the finances caused by the course of ecclesias- 
tical legislation since the Revolution began its course. 
Of all the denominational and sectarian fragments that 
have been enumerated only one had a legal standing 



GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 213 

— that of the ConstitutionaHsts. Its adherents could, 
as pubhc functionaries, demand pay from the treas- 
ury; but so Hkewise, after Thermidor, could almost 
every priest, monk, and nun, for under one legislative 
body or another to each and all had been promised pen- 
sions.^ To be sure, there was in every case some re- 
striction or other in connection with profession and 
conduct, but proof was impossible, and the clamor 
would soon be intolerable. 

Besides all these obligations, both atheistic and deis- 
tic ceremonies had been elaborately celebrated at the 
public expense, and it was morally certain that the min- 
isters of the secular cult, which was determined to 
make itself national by forcing the observance of the 
national ten-day festival, would likewise demand sup- 
port from the nation in whose interest they would so 
ostentatiously be working. All this expense the bud- 
get could not support, and Cambon, on September 
twentieth, 1794, brought this fact to the attention of 
the Convention. Exasperated w^ith Robespierre, the 
Thermidorians, radical and moderate, were well dis- 

^ We have indicated else- incumbents with twelve hiin- 

where that the entire clergy dred livres. When recanting 

had in one of two forms been grew common the apostates 

promised a measure of state were also pensioned with twelve 

support. Those who were dis- hundred livres. But financial 

placed by the confiscation of stress put an end to all pay- 

the ecclesiastical estates and the ments whatsoever for pensions 

working of the Civil Consti- or salaries some months before 

tution were to receive pensions, the revolution of Thermidor. 

others a salary. On September It was because of the demands 

twenty-seventh, 1792, pensions made by the Constitutionals, 

were fixed at a thousand livres ; who had still a legal claim, that 

the salaries varied according Cambon suggested finally the 

to provisions of the law. But complete separation of church 

on the plea of suspected dis- and state ; the measure had no 

loyalty, the Convention, in relation to the convictions of 

September, 1793, reduced the radicals, philosophers, or even 

salaries of bishops to six thou- the moderate reformers ; it was 

sand livres and abolished all purely a matter of public ccon- 

the vicariates, pensioning the omy. 



214 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

posed to reject whatever he had advocated, and a na- 
tional rehgion with functionary ministers in state pay 
had been his pivotal doctrine. Hence, for the moment 
all conflicting elements could unite in nullifying the 
Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the disestablish- 
ment of the church. It was the fixed conviction of the 
few and the sense of expediency felt by the many which 
enacted the famous decree we are discussing, best 
known as that of 3 Ventose, year III. 

Nevertheless, in general the effect of the Ventose de- 
cree was electrical. Chapels were opened to throngs 
of worshippers both in Paris and in the departments. 
In April the Convention signed a treaty with the Ven- 
dean rebels, and at once worship was restored in the 
churches throughout the western districts. For the 
most part there was no opposition ; but in places where 
radical Jacobins were numerous a few successful efforts 
were made to restrain the priests by fine or imprison- 
ment, on the ground that they were desecrating the re- 
publican calendar and defying the republican laws. In 
truth, the situation was in theory most abnormal. The 
Civil Constitution had not been formally repealed ; the 
churches had not been legally reopened. There was 
great uneasiness, therefore, among the Constitutionals 
and their supporters. 

By a supplementary decree of 11 Prairial (May 
thirtieth, 1795) all churches which had not been sold 
were restored to the communes, to be used as halls of 
assembly for all purposes, including worship, and no 
priest was to officiate who had not taken the oath. 
This gave great comfort to the Constitutionals, and vir- 
tually perpetuated their organization. But there arose 
even greater confusion than before; it was in the 
churches that the Decadi was celebrated. This was a 
desecration. It had been the intention that the celebra- 



GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 215 

tion of the Decadis should be essentially secular. 
There were to be, and already there were, lectures on 
such themes as *'civism," the culture of the potato, the 
nature of the constitution, and so on. Even the radi- 
cals felt the intolerable tedium of such performances — a 
dreariness not relieved in the slightest by the singing 
of national songs, as Avas ordered. Boissy d'Anglas 
wildly suggested that the ceremonies should be enliv- 
ened and made interesting by the presentation of a rose 
to innocence, or similar naive parodies of worship. 
Chenier boldly advocated the further evolution of great 
national festivals, and calls were made in the sessions 
of the legislature for the speedy accomplishment of 
the work. One deputy absent in the provinces noted 
with dismay the religious revival, and demanded a 
radical cure, partly by public instruction and partly by 
the tenth-day feasts. A formal bill to this effect was 
presented in January. It was nearly a year before the 
civic banquets and festivals were organized. They 
were predestined to failure because the popular feeling 
had rebelled against all the republican-democratic inno- 
vations which they typified. Many already understood 
that such devices were hollow and of no avail. 

Recognizing how abhorrent to nature even a reli- 
gious vacuum is, the radical sectaries were busy organ- 
izing the so-called religious movement, in the national 
interest, of which we have spoken. It was to be styled 
Theophilanthropy, and its inventors desired to retain 
general observance of the tenth day, in order to render 
truly national their contemplated absurdity of a cult, 
These spurious religionists and the so-called patriots 
in general wished to quench ''the reviving fanaticism," 
and in order to gain time and place for their own plans 
desired a penalty of six months' imprisonment to be 
imposed on any one reestablishing worship in the 



2i6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

churches. They made some headway on the ground of 
*'pubHc safety," but the victory over the uprising of 
I Prairial (May twentieth, 1795) reassured the Con- 
vention as to the reahty of its power; and Lanjuinais, 
citing the example of Vendee, proposed and had en- 
acted a decree which reopened such churches through- 
out France as had been in use before the second year 
of the Repubhc (September twenty-second, 1793). 

This law was passed on September twenty-seventh, 
1795. It subjected, *'in behalf of public security," all 
gatherings for worship to the oversight of the police, 
and forbade all attempts to restrain liberty of con- 
science or interfere in any way with any form of wor- 
ship whatever.^ It required but a single guarantee, 
namely, that every minister of religion should affirm : 
'T acknowledge that the totality of the French people 
is sovereign, and I. promise obedience and submission 
to the laws of the Republic." Although in this there 
is a complete acknowledgment of secular supremacy, 
yet it would seem that, even including the last clause, 
it would, if generally obeyed, have secured a free 
church and have inaugurated the voluntary system of 
support. 

But this last clause, though generally acceptable and 
accepted in Paris as a mere recognition of the powers 
that be, proved a stumbling-block to the clergy of the 
departments. Their recalcitrancy led to further ob- 
scurantist legislation, which soon eclipsed all the light 
shed by the Convention on the problem of complete re- 
ligious liberty. The Abbe fimery pleaded, as head of 
the archiepiscopal council, and pleaded earnestly, for 
submission without approval, as priests perforce must 

^ These phrases of "public tose and repeated here, were 
security" and "police power," destined to be pivotal to Napo- 
first used in the decree of Ven- Icon's Concordat. 



GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 217 

do in Protestant and Mohammedan countries. But, as 
he admitted, the fewest ecclesiastics had even rudimen- 
tary ideas of poHtical jurisprudence, and the rest re- 
fused all compromise or conciliation. In the west 
numerous nonjuring priests made formal reservation 
of their religious principles and complied with the law, 
though they refused to officiate in buildings used by the 
jurors, as being temples defiled. The officials accepted 
this solution because already the mutterings of further 
insurrection were audible. But in Lyons the Conven- 
tion agents demanded compliance without reservation, 
though they winked at a wide-spread reopening of 
churches without any formal assertion of principle by 
the vicars and curates. 

Possibly some arrangement might have been reached 
throughout the country in varying compromises suited 
to the respective localities. But a royalist expedition, 
outfitted in England under Pitt's auspices, landed at 
Quiberon only two short months after the pacification 
of V'endee, and with it w^ere forty priests, led by the 
emigrant Bishop of Dol. The invasion was momen- 
tarily successful, but Hoche suppressed it with piti- 
less severity, and by order of the Convention seven 
hundred persons, including sixteen priests, with the 
bishop and his coadjutor, were shot on July thir- 
tieth, 1795. Simultaneously the government claimed, 
and probably with right, to have discovered a wide- 
spread conspiracy among the ecclesiastics for the resto- 
ration of royalty and Catholicism as held by the Ultra- 
montanes. Certain it is that the '"refractory" priests 
throughout France continued to treat their conforming 
brethren with contempt, descending even to scur- 
rilous and fierce attacks, written and physical. Emi- 
grants, too, began to reenter France from all direc- 
tions, inciting their friends and such others as they 



2i8 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

could influence not only to restore royalty, but to mas- 
sacre the representatives of the people — all, they as- 
serted, for the greater glory of God and the safety of 
the republic ! To this end there was a series of bloody 
and successful efforts, fuller mention of which is best 
made in another connection, at Lyons, Marseilles, 
Nimes, Tarascon, and generally throughout the south. 

This shocking and shameful conduct of the clericals 
and the clerical factions was met by a fierce rebound on 
the part of the radicals. On September sixth the Leg- 
islative Committee issued a series of rescripts in which 
recusant priests were forbidden to reenter France 
under pain of banishment. Those still resident who 
refused the declaration under the law of Prairial were 
to be imprisoned. Every conceivable check was de- 
vised to bring recalcitrants to terms. Any one who 
promulgated any document emanating from a minister 
of religion not residing in France (the Pope) or his 
delegate was to be imprisoned, and any person advo- 
cating royalty or the betrayal of the republic was to be 
imprisoned for life. Even censure of measures already 
taken to regulate ecclesiastical affairs was to be pun- 
ished by fine or imprisonment. 

This pronunciamento was received by the clericals 
with a dismay paralleled only by that with which they 
had received the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and 
fierce dissensions split their ranks. The moderates, 
under the leadership of the Abbe £mery, held up the 
past folly of those who had refused the earlier test of 
mere submission to the laws. As to the phrase of ''sov- 
ereignty residing in the universality or totality of the 
French people," the leader declared that he could and 
did accept the statement as a fact, though he could not 
support the implied theory; moreover, the most ortho- 
dox Roman publicists of comparatively recent times, he 



GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 219 

said, had even maintained the statement as a thesis — 
men hke Siiarez, Salmeron, and Navarre. Discussion 
raged and bitterness supplanted all Christian charity 
until even the archiepiscopal council was sundered and 
the ranks of the clericals shattered. Schism was uni- 
versal and complete. The most stubborn reactionaries 
held together in a small group known as the ''Little 
Church." 

Once more the royalists and discontented of every 
type drew together into a formidable coalition against 
the Convention, and once more the rebellion was ruth- 
lessly suppressed by an army. In the conflict of Oc- 
tober fourth, known as the Day of the Sections, a 
shrewd, intelligent, observant adventurer, an officer 
already of some renown in the revolutionary armies of 
France, w^as the man of greatest importance. It was 
on that day that Napoleon Bonaparte was launched on 
his grand career.^ Meantime, with strange fatuity, the 
political theorists had concocted another idealistic con- 
stitution, providing for many details of government 
far removed on the one hand from radical concepts, 
and on the other from the political habits of the people. 
It, too, was abortive even without the short trial of life 
it was destined to have, because it rested on military 
force for its basis, and no civil constitution can stand 
unless it be the expression of strong general conviction 
and of habits both political and social. Since blood had 
filled the gutters of Paris through the intrigues of re- 
actionary priests but lately returned to France, the Con- 
vention, on October twenty-fifth, ordered that all laws 
against such should be put into execution within twen- 
ty-four hours. On October twenty-sixth, after extend- 

^ An admirable study of this Lettrcs de I'Universite de Paris, 
"Day" may be found in the Vol. VI. Zivy, Le Trcize Ven- 
Bibliotheque de la Faculte dcs demiaire An IV. 



220 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



ing amnesty to all except the plotting priests, it handed 
over the reins of government to the most feeble and 
contemptible administration ever set to rule a great 
country — that of the Directory. 

The earliest acts of the executive committee which 
now wielded the sovereignty were an effort to exhaust 
the scanty forces of the disheartened, disintegrated, and 
prostrate Church of Rome. Persecution was renewed 
with frightful bitterness, and in the effort to discoun- 
tenance worship the ringing of church bells was pro- 
hibited. In this way the church bell became the shib- 
boleth of parties.^ Fighting and strife were openly 
renewed in many quarters. Within a few months 
twenty-six priests were done to death, with or without 
what was called due process of law. The new consti- 
tution was so far anti-radical as to provide for two 
houses in the legislature. In the lower one, where Ja- 
cobinism was rampant, the most extreme measures were 
passed; the older, graver men of the upper one threw 
them out on the ground that they were a breach of sol- 
emn promises, and would surely rekindle the flames of 
civil war. Count Portalis, ere long to exert a para- 
mount influence, pleaded vigorously for religious tol- 
eration. Recalling the prediction of Rousseau, that 
philosophers, once in power, would become more relent- 
less persecutors than the ecclesiastics, he proved con- 
clusively, in an eloquent speech, that liberty of con- 



^ All the contemporary records 
abound in discussions about the 
church bell. One which is 
perhaps as short and enlighten- 
ing as any may be found in the 
Moniteur, June seventeenth, 
1797, No. 269. Said Parisot, 
one of the debaters : "You can- 
not conceal from yourselves 
that almost the totality of the 
French people professes the 



Catholic religion. I do not see, 
therefore, why you should for- 
bid the common means of call- 
ing the citizens to worship. It 
was formerly used, and is still 
used for public assemblies." 
Several members cried : "These 
assemblies are constitutional, 
religious service is not." Amid 
tumult the meeting adjourned. 



GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 221 

science was the only remedy for fanaticism. Within a 
year and a half public opinion throug-hout the country 
veered once more, officials grew timid, the measures of 
the Convention were not enforced, and by 1797 one of 
the five directors (Barthelemy) was a royalist, while a 
group of intelligent, moderate men in both houses con- 
trolled legislation, against a majority of radicals in the 
lower, against a minority of the same in the upper. 
The dominant force was a body of moderate republi- 
cans and royalists combined in the upper house. 



XIII 
ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 



XIII 

ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 

FOR the period of three years, from 1792 to 1795, 
the resources of France had seemed boundless; in 
her supreme effort of self-defence the superbly inex- 
haustible reservoirs of nature's primeval forces were 
apparently at her disposal. Under the republic the 
nation had been unified; out of raw plebeian material 
had been created a resistless army, generals by the 
score who were the peers of Turenne, of Luxembourg, 
of Tallard, diplomats superior to Mazarin or Barillon, 
administrators who could vie with Colbert and Lou- 
vois. At Bale the European coalition against her was 
disbanded, the national frontiers of ancient Gaul were 
secured, and the cherished policy of natural boundaries 
which the monarchy could flaunt only as an ideal was 
now brilliantly realized. Though Great Britain and 
Austria were implacable, yet the one seemed exhausted 
and the other contem.ptible. Finally, in the constitu- 
tion of the year III. a new system of European public 
law was announced, for thereafter France was to re- 
main what she had become by an unpremeditated con- 
juncture of circumstances — a republic. 

But in erecting the political structure known as the 
Directory the social structure of France was disre- 
garded and its religious conditions ignored. From 1739 
onward the successive phases of political and social 
change had been marked by convulsions euphemistically 

225 



226 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

known as ''Days." These exhibitions of mob violence 
were steadily growing more frequent. The Convention 
had been forced to identify itself with the Paris riots 
of May thirty-first and June second, 1793; it had suc- 
ceeded in suppressing the hostile insurrections of the 
south and west by its citizen armies. Under the Terror 
its difficulties were intestine, and Thermidor was a 
reaction. But no sooner were all the factions reunited 
in Paris than the Days recurred with ominous celerity. 

The Day of 12 Germinal (April first, 1795) over- 
threw the surviving terrorists; the Day of i Prairial 
(May twentieth) and its successors virtually extermi- 
nated them. The prisons of France were now gorged 
with radicals, as they had been formerly with royalists. 

A new Terror reared its awful head, and in the south- 
east its excesses were ghastly. Organizing secret asso- 
ciations, under the style of Companies of the Sun, of 
Jesus, of Jehu, the Ultramontane party formed again 
like magic, many emerging from their retreats on 
French soil, many of the emigrants reappearing as if 
from the regions under the earth. ^ At Lyons and at 
Roanne they made a general jail delivery of the repub- 
licans and massacred all. Brought to trial, the assas- 
sins were triumphantly acquitted, and hailed by the 
populace as heroes. At Aix the prisoners were tor- 
tured with horrid barbarity and then murdered by roy- 
alists from Marseilles. The fort at Tarascon was 
broken open by a band of armed men, and the pris- 
oners were flung into the Rhone. The workmen of 
Toulon rose in defence of their republican faith, and 
a royalist army, drawn together with almost preter- 
natural celerity, overwhelmed them completely, show- 
ing no quarter. The final scene of this short and awful 

^ Rapport de M. J. Chenier a la Convention. Moniteur, 
An III., No. 279. 



ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 227 

carnage was the murder, on June fifth, 1795, at Mar- 
seilles, of all the republicans incarcerated at Fort St. 
John. 

This carnival of murder was the White Terror. It 
had political significance only in so far as the irrecon- 
cilable ecclesiastics instigated it, identifying themselves 
with the royalist revival and with monarchy itself. 
Simultaneously the Comte de Provence, then at Ve- 
rona, announced that Louis XVIL having died in the 
Temple on June eighth, he himself now reigned as 
Louis XVIIL, and would restore the old regime. This 
and similar acts were most ill advised from every point 
of view, for even the most ardent royalists were by 
this time aware that in the new era Constitutional mon- 
archy and a reformed church could alone have any 
chance for life. There was a distinctly noticeable anti- 
royalist reaction both in Paris and in the departments. 

Thus encouraged, the Convention had taken heart, 
and on the Day of 13 Vendemiaire, year IV. (October 
fourth, 1795), the most famous Day of all, the Day 
of the Sections, it suppressed, by a detachment of its 
invincible army, a mutiny in Paris caused by an ever 
growing distrust of the Convention in general, in par- 
ticular by the Convention decree requiring two thirds of 
the next legislature to be members of the existing one.^ 
This use of the army was a new departure, and the 
Directory took the lesson to heart. It was a Conven- 
tion army which "pacified" Vendee; it was the pres- 
tige of a Convention army which suppressed the com- 
munistic revolt of Babeuf, and it was the ruthless work 
of another which accomplished the Jacobin revival on 
the Day of 18 Fructidor, year V. (September fourth, 
1797). Still another Day, that of 22 Floreal, year 
VI. (April eleventh, 1798), was carried through by 

^ Zivy, Le Treize Vendemiaire, p. 15. 



228 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

the awe of the military as incarnated in Bonaparte, 
then present in Paris. The legislature was at one 
stroke purged of some sixty radical democrats who 
had been duly elected. By this time the system of 
the Directory was thoroughly discredited, for military 
force was now manifestly paramount in politics. 

The elections of the year VH., though peaceable 
and regular, were profoundly influenced by the failures 
of the Directory abroad. Jourdan's army had been de- 
feated and driven back across the Rhine, and, as indi- 
cating a wide-spread contempt for the republic, the 
French plenipotentiaries in the Congress of Rastatt had 
not only been overwhelmed with obloquy, but, as the 
sequel proved, were in danger of their lives. Hence 
the new^ legislature was distinctly unsympathetic with 
the new constitution. By the menace of exposing its 
inefficiency the wretched Directory was delivered to its 
enemies, and by them thrown into a panic. The Day 
of 30 Prairial, year VIL(June seventeenth, 1799), saw 
the withdrawal from the Directorate of its two sin- 
cerely republican members — Merlin, under the charge 
of a disgusting Machiavellianism, and La Revelliere- 
Lepeaux, under that of attacking liberty of conscience 
in order to favor Theophilanthropy. The charges are 
as significant as the fact of withdrawal. One is of 
immorality, the other of irreligion. Once more it 
seems as if the political condition of France was deter- 
mined by religious forces. 

In any case, there was a gradual and permanent re- 
arrangement of social elements. The moderate repub- 
licans and royalists of the new type alike favored some 
form of constitution which should be really expressive 
of the new French temper, symptoms of which could 
now be seen. These symptoms were, in fact, not 
merely visible, they had already brought into promi- 



ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 229 

nence a class of men which was effectively asserting its 
power. That power was based in the sad experiences 
of so-called religious liberty under the contemptible and 
impotent Directory. Its inefficiency in war and diplo- 
macy was of a piece with its impolitic and feeble con- 
duct at home. This fact had deeply impressed the 
politicians destined to sway the men of the coming gen- 
eration. The most trustworthy of this class were Ca- 
mille Jordan, Royer-Collard, Boissy d'Anglas, Portalis, 
Pastoret, Simeon, and Barbe-Marbois ; Barthelemy and 
the great Carnot, though less active, were not ill dis- 
posed to the strivings of their colleagues. 

Some of these men — Royer-Collard and Camille Jor- 
dan, for example — were newly elected, and had taken 
no share in the fiercer strife of the Revolution. The lat- 
ter, in an epochal oration^ delivered on June fifteenth, 
1797, began the movement of transition by an attack 
on the entire legislation of the successive assemblies, 
National, Legislative, and Convention, which, together, 
in feverish precipitancy, had in six years enacted no 
fewer than fifteen thousand four hundred and seventy- 
nine laws ! With clarion call he demanded a revision 
of the statute-books, based on the firm foundation 
which was now laid — viz., the national consciousness 
of right and wrong. Declaring that religion should no 
longer be proscribed, but protected, he reiterated the 
solemn promise that worship should be free in France. 
In his peroration he called for the restoration of all 
the outward symbols of faith, including the church 
bell. These, he declared, spoke to the popular heart 
and evoked the noblest sentiments of mankind. The 
step actually taken in consequence of his plea was to 
abrogate all the penal laws against the clergy and re- 
store them to citizenship without exacting any decla- 
* Moniteur, June twenty-second, 1797. (An V., Nos. 274 and 275.) 



230 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

ration of conformity to the law of Prairial. It was 
held that because the priests were no longer function- 
aries paid by the state they were not bound to measures 
not applicable to all citizens. 

This remarkable result was, however, achieved in 
part by the fire and eloquence of Royer-Collard. His 
speech was doubly interesting because he already pre- 
dicted that for the restoration of public order some 
form of concordat was essential. 

The prospects for true reform were thus most prom- 
ising, but once more the good work was undone by the 
incredible temerity of the intended beneficiaries. The 
proscribed classes, clerics and laics, reappeared, as has 
been previously noted, by thousands and tens of thou- 
sands. They were not content to live unmolested, but 
pushed the fact of their return into public notice by 
every form of effrontery — vaporing, boasting of their 
intentions, and even announcing the return of the Bour- 
bons with the old system. The White Terror, although 
elsewhere the excesses were not comparable to it, was 
only one exhibition of their ferocity. Thus moderate 
republicans and royalists were alike checkmated in the 
fulfilment of their intentions; the radicals secured the 
ministry by the violence of the Ultramontanes,and with 
the aid of the army — an army now commanded not by 
Bonaparte, but by his lieutenant, the fiery Augereau — 
on September fourth, 1797 (18 Fructidor), coerced the 
two houses of the legislature. Augereau had boasted, 
though without foundation, that he was sent to Paris to 
"kill the royalists." There may have been a grain of 
truth in his statement, but Bonaparte always practised 
a specious reserve in speaking of Fructidor. In view of 
the succeeding events and the work of the 18 Brumaire 
(November ninth, 1799), no one can doubt the mea- 
sure of his foresight; the former day, however, was 



ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 231 

the victory of a cause, and the latter was the victory 
of the man. 

The rehgious consequences of Fructidor were imme- 
diate.^ The legislature reenacted the terrorist laws, 
and demanded from all officiating ministers an oath still 
more radical than the last — *' Hatred to royalty and 
anarchy, attachment and fidelity to the republic and to 
the constitution of the year IIL" This oath the juror 
priests could easily take, for to them royalty was a 
monstrosity; but the nonjurors, almost to a man, re- 
coiled. A certain number of the recusants, perhaps a 
majority, finally yielded. This was due to an official 
declaration plausibly representing that in the language 
of the oath there was no reflection on the person of 
kings; this must be so, for the republic was constantly 
transacting business with them ; the words were aimed 
against the reestablishment of royalty and monarchical 
government in France.^ 

But compliance was of no avail ; the motto of the 
Fructidorians was ''Thorough." Encouraged by the 
turn of the weathercock at Paris, Jacobin demagogues 
at once came out of their burrows in every district of 
France. The rural governments, based on popular 
choice, were overthrown; elections were either can- 
celled or suspended ; the primaries were by subdivision 
adroitly surrendered into Jacobin hands; the radicals 
seized every office. The proscription of religion ad- 
vanced with equal step, and this time priests were ar- 
rested, imprisoned, and transported, not under the stan- 
dard charge of being traitors to the state, but avowedly 
as the agents of an abhorrent superstition. The guil- 
lotine was not set up again, but the church bell was 

^ Mallet du Pan, Memoires et lessly forced on all the depu- 

Correspondance, II. 320 ct seq. ties, see the Moniteur, Septem- 

^ For an idea of how the oath ber fourteenth, 1797. (An V., 

of hatred to royalty was ruth- No, 357-) 



2 32 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

once more prohibited; the celebration of Sunday as a 
holy day was made almost impossible by the pains of 
persecution; the celebration of the Decadi as a reli- 
gious festival was pronounced imperative, and recalci- 
trants were arrested by hundreds upon hundreds. The 
most refractory of the priests were treated like crimi- 
nals, and sent in shoals to the penal establishments at 
Oleron, Rhe, and Mont-Saint-Michel; the overflow of 
these jails was banished to the torrid shores of the Sin- 
namari, a fate worse than death, because (and this is 
but one example out of many) from a single consign- 
ment of exiles, between four and five hundred in num- 
ber, only twenty survived their cruel sufferings for six 
months. This death-rate was not exceptional in simi- 
lar instances. 

The most impenitent advocates of what they them- 
selves persistently styled tolerance and philosophy had 
by this time realized what they had already feared — 
that in religion, as in physics, nature abhors a vacuum. 
Accordingly, they made ready to bring into full promi- 
nence what was already prepared in theory, the fledg- 
ling sect of Theophilanthropy. They acted vigorously, 
with a view to substituting that strange congeries of 
dogma and ritual in place of Roman Catholicism as a 
state religion. In their opinion there was urgent need. 
Thirty-two thousand churches, as estimated by Gre- 
goire, were open for worship. The ministers were in 
part the old Constitutionals, in part the new conform- 
ists. But far and near worship was celebrated in one 
way and another. Moreover, the Constitutional bishops 
had entered on a path of moderation and wisdom, sug- 
gesting methods of organization and procedure for the 
Gallican Church which it now seems, and seemed to 
some of their contemporary opponents, should have ap- 
pealed to every right-minded Roman Catholic. They 



ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 22,^ 

had issued two important and sensible encyclicals ; then, 
assembling in a national ecclesiastical council at Notre 
Dame, they likewise addressed Pius VL, begging for 
his assistance and advice. To their prayer his ear was 
deaf. Equally so were the mass of nonjuror brethren 
to whom they turned beseechingly for reconciliation 
and harmony. For the most part the initiative and 
form of these measures were the work of Gregoire. 

Due tribute must be paid to both branches of the 
Roman Church during the closing years of the revolu- 
tionary epoch, at least for sincerity and perseverance, 
if not for wisdom. Both were fearless and both de- 
sired the welfare of true religion. The Ultramontanes 
suffered persecution and martyrdom like saints, sacri- 
ficed all worldly advantage with true heroism, and 
neglected not a single opportunity, even the most trou- 
blesome or secret, to observe their ordinances and cele- 
brate their worship, in the teeth of an opposition which 
was fanatical and terrible. They retained some form 
of organization throughout; with full liberty they 
would have been completely successful. On the other 
hand, the Constitutionals avowed their devotion to re- 
publican institutions and sought the restoration of reli- 
gion in consonance with them. They were no less 
zealous and self-sacrificing. They were glad to be 
freed from state control and state support. They like- 
wise renounced papal supremacy as a binding dogma, 
and instituted a semi-presbyterian form of organiza- 
tion. The faith of their adherents was kept alive and 
fervent by frequent revivals. Their able journal ("An- 
nales de la Religion") secured unity of thought and 
action; the clergy and laity alike inculcated and prac- 
tised a strict morality. The clergy were simply inde- 
fatigable ; with scarcely an exception, they lived meanly 
and practised a rigid economy. A typical example of 



234 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

this is a touching incident, told by various authors, of 
how, when a venerable priest was found mending his 
old black stockings with white thread, and rallied upon 
the fact, he could see nothing extraordinary or curious 
in his expedient. Like their refractory brethren of the 
Roman cult, the juror priests neglected no opportunity 
for public worship or pastoral service, baptizing chil- 
dren, performing marriage ceremonies, and burying 
the dead, all with courageous defiance of every petty 
annoyance and public opposition. 

In the council of 1797 the Constitutionals, as they still 
were called, though of course the Civil Constitution 
was no longer operative, took the last step of reform. 
They reorganized their church on the basis of a com- 
plete voluntary system under the law of Ventose. With 
the broadest charity, they recognized the standing of 
every minister, no difference what his attitude toward 
public questions had been in the past. Deploring 
schism, they called on the Pope to confirm them in their 
assertion that the briefs of 1790, 1791, and 1792 had 
been apocryphal, and promised in advance to submit 
themselves to the decrees of an ecumenical coimcil, 
which they begged him to call right speedily. In a 
second council, assembled in 1801, they went further, 
and made careful preparation for a complete reorgani- 
zation of the entire Galilean Church on the broadest 
lines. In 1798 there were forty-six of the Constitu- 
tional bishoprics vacant. By herculean efforts all but 
fifteen of these were quickly filled. It seemed as if the 
fragmentary organization might be completed, but the 
Concordat cut short the labors of this council almost 
before they were inaugurated. 

To us it appears that the bitter antagonism between 
the two warring camps, each claiming to be soldiers 
of the cross, ought in this period to have been obliter- 



ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 235 

ated before a common foe. France was utterly demor- 
alized. A mad passion for pleasure now dominated 
society. Every vice was rampant. The family as an 
institution was almost disintegrated under the law of 
marriage and divorce. Designing infidels had con- 
vinced the masses that, like spurious ecclesiasticism, 
Christianity itself was incompatible with democracy. 
The papacy, alas! was impotent. Pius VL was per- 
sonally an excellent man. He was the representative 
of a power ostensibly moral, but, if so, strangely sapped 
by the decay of its temporalities; the foundation of 
sand was slipping away, the edifice itself was crum- 
bling before an implacable foe, and the spiritual forces 
inherent in the ancient institution could not be rallied 
either to moderate the implacable or to stimulate the 
wavering. 

Meantime the secular authorities w^ere busy adopting 
and enforcing stringent regulations for the observance 
of the Decadi by cessation from work and trade, and 
for the relegation of Sunday to labor or amusement. 
The decrees were as stringent as they could be drawn. 
By those of August and September, 1798, business, 
public and private, could not be transacted on the De- 
cadis. Li the public hall or church the magistrates were 
on those days to make all official announcements, cele- 
brate marriages, grant divorces, and register births and 
deaths. All school-children were to attend these edi- 
fying exercises, and, as a relief from the tedium, they 
Avere to have games and sports thereafter. If any pre- 
ferred the ceremonies of the church, they were de- 
nounced as so far unfaithful to the republic, and a 
strict watch was kept on all who were irregular in 
attending the official secular meetings. The nonjurors 
proved utterly recalcitrant; the former Constitutionals 
complied occasionally, through fear, but in the main 



236 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

they, too, disobeyed. Gregoire denounced these de- 
crees from his seat in the hall of the Five Hundred (or 
lower house) in a fierce arraignment of the public good 
faith, for he recalled that the new calendar had been 
adopted purely as a civil matter. All efforts, there- 
fore, to enforce it as a part of religion and to discour- 
age Christian worship on the regular day were clearly 
an attempt to treat one, and only one, religious society 
as an exception. His sentiments were applauded by 
all Christians. To those who were bent on the com- 
plete ''laicization" of France it was plain that threats 
and blandishments were alike ineffective. For the mo- 
ment the two warring camps of Roman Catholics were 
firmly united in a common resistance. There were 
now only two political parties, and it was disastrous 
that at bottom royalists and republicans were separated 
by the religious question. The former adopted as their 
battle-cry : 'The king and religion." 

A phenomenon so strange quickly and easily brought 
the theophilanthropists into temporary prominence; 
this was exactly the crisis they desired ; for they alone, 
it was claimed, repeated, and asseverated, could abolish 
Sunday by substituting for the dry and meaningless 
harangues or proclamations of laws by which the Deca- 
dis had hitherto been and still were to be celebrated, 
a veritable religious observance from which no man, 
not even the atheists, should be excluded. The amaz- 
ing and preposterous monstrosity of Theophilanthropy, 
which was to work this miracle, is traceable to the 
deism of Robespierre. Its parent mind was that of a 
wild enthusiast named d'Aubermenil ; its sponsors were 
a number of apostate priests, and its promulgator was 
a certain hack-writer named Chemin. Only a few men 
of eminence were associated with it — Dupont de Ne- 
mours, Marie Joseph Chenier, Bernardin de Saint- 



ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 237 

Pierre, and the painter David. Two others of less note, 
Roederer and La Revelhere-Lepeaux, were its active 
supporters. Its official publications were a manual, a 
ritual, a religious year-book, and some volumes of 
moral platitudes.^ 

"^ The official style of the religious invention was ''In- 
stitute of Morals." It was professedly organized to 
comprehend all that w^as oldest and best in the history 
of the world. On the feast day of Tolerance its devo- 
tees marched under banners inscribed with the names 
of all preexistent religions, including one that never 
had existed, a cult consecrated to morality. Their 
first formal act was to hold a council in Notre Dame; 
the second was a schism, for a body of the original 
founders seceded, and, holding its sessions in the 
Church of Thomas Aquinas, denied the jurisdiction of 
the parent assembly. 

Both sects, however, used the same ceremonies when 
met for the observance of the Decadis. In all their 
ordinances the directing high priest was the notorious 
busybody, the absurd member of the Directory named 
La Revelliere-Lepeaux. He himself had no distinctive 
garb, and remained generally in the background. His 
assistants, however, had beautiful regalia. The offi- 
ciating director of each local celebration was clad in 
white, with a rose-colored girdle. He stood on a dais, 

^ The original authority on jures the principles of any one ! 
Theophilanthropy is a short Mallet, p. 369, also notices a 
treatise by Gregoire, published poster with which the walls of 
originally in German : Ge- Paris were placarded by per- 
schichte des Theophilanthropis- mission of the police, begin- 
mus, Hanover. 1806. See also ning, "Les hommes sans Dieu 
Mallet du Pan, Correspon- professent un culte : la vertu 
dance, II. 368, and Moniteur, seule en sera I'objet." He asks, 
An v., 9 Floreal. The notice with great pregnancy of mean- 
in the Moniteur declares that ing, "Could other powers make 
Theophilanthropy is not a sect, a treaty with such a govern- 
since it neither denies nor ab- ment?" 



238 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

with bared head, opposite an altar ornamented with 
fruits or flowers, according to the season. Reciting 
an invocation, he paused, and the worshippers repeated 
his words in a low tone; then followed a moment of 
silent cross-examination. Thereupon one short hom- 
ily after another was read or delivered, each on some 
topic of a moral nature. These were interspersed with 
hymns and chants, for the most part of high artistic 
character both as to words and music. There followed 
a number of prayers to the god of nature. The exer- 
cise was in each case limited to an hour and a half. 

Special services were devised for consecrating in- 
fants, for funerals, and for marriages. In these last 
the pair used a ring, with a medal as a token of union, 
and were bound together by enfolding floral garlands ; 
at interments a funeral urn, set beneath drooping palms, 
was the centre of interest; the corpse was kept else- 
where out of view. The high holidays, set apart for 
general observance, were in honor of Socrates, Rous- 
seau, Washington, and St. Vincent de Paul ! Such ab- 
surdities as these were little regarded beyond the walls 
of Paris ; the only successes of Theophilanthropy without 
the capital were in Bourges, Poitiers, and the depart- 
ment of the Yonne. The sect had an unhonored career 
and a short shrift, for in 1801 the use of churches was 
forbidden to it, and on the withdrawal of government 
sanction the clumsy system came to an end. During 
its existence the so-called services might be held, and 
sometimes were held, in a church on the same day 
as Christian worship, provided, as often happened, that 
Decadi and Sunday fell together. Thus, in the same 
building on the same day would be three celebrations — 
that of mass in the morning, of the governmental 
Decadi service at noon, and of the theophilanthropists 
in the afternoon. Absurdity could go no further. 



ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 239 

The general religious disorder was not relieved by a 
single focus of living force ; there was not one fulcrum 
for the leverage of constructive power. Protestantism 
was scarcely alive. Paul Rabaud died in 1795, under 
the weight of years and suffering; of the pastors who 
had seen the opening of the Revolution but a handful 
of exhausted, discouraged men was left. The ranks of 
the laity had been continuously decimated by shameful 
apostacies, for the deism of England and Germany had 
reacted on them and sapped their faith. The Re- 
formed Church knew nothing of the throes which shook 
Roman Catholicism, for after the action of the Con- 
stituent it was free; yet, almost the only faithful were 
either the plain people in towns like Nimes and Mon- 
tauban, who retorted on the violence of radicals and 
Catholics with blow for blow, or else the moderate and 
timid of the middle class, who nourished their faith in 
secret and took refuge from trouble behind an outward 
conformity. During the orgies of Hebert and Chau- 
mette in honor of Reason the Protestants, like all Chris- 
tians, were persecuted and terrorized. Many aban- 
doned their faith and cause. The organization of the 
church was substantially destroyed. Spasmodic efforts 
to reconstitute the Protestant congregations w^ere made 
under the Directory, and in some cases they met with 
success. It may possibly be said that there actually 
was an organized Protestant church when the Con- 
sulate came into existence, but it could barely maintain 
itself, and played no decisive role in religious affairs. 
Its seminaries were closed, its people disheartened, its 
pastors dismayed, its voice almost hushed.^ 

The complete disintegration of religious society was 

^ G. de Felice, Histoire des completely absorbed in the lib- 
Protestants de France, p. 568. eral ranks. See his speech, 
Boulay de la Meurthe spoke of quoted in Aulard, Histoire 
the Protestants as having been Politique, etc., p. 649. 



240 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

reflected in the confusion of French life, social, civil, 
political, and even military; for the army, as reorgan- 
ized under the republic, was in a high sense national. 
The contentiousness of theFructidorians was a fatuous, 
but a fierce imitation of the wild savagery displayed by 
the conventionals. After Prairial the Five Hundred 
restored the Committee of Public Safety under the 
name of a "Commission of Eleven," authorized domi- 
ciliary visits, and, in view of the now imminent inva- 
sion of France, decreed the "levee en masse," that 
every able-bodied man could be drafted into the army. 
To provide funds the "class in easy circumstances" was 
summoned to furnish a hundred million francs, and 
the money was collected by a progressive land tax. To 
check the brutal excesses of the royalists there was en- 
acted a hideous law, known as the law of hostages, 
whereby in every troublesome district all the relatives, 
male and female, of emigrants, nobles, and rebels were 
to be held as hostages ; at every outbreak of the family 
culprit the entire body of hostages was to contribute 
five thousand francs as a fine, and four individuals were 
to be deported. It is well to remember that deporta- 
tion was now a horror so well recognized that in com- 
mon parlance it was known as "the dry guillotine." 
Of course such frightful severity defeated itself. The 
"red spectre" of Jacobinism was not slow to reappear. 
Evading the laws against political associations, a so- 
called Jacobin club was formed. The members were 
avowed communists and anarchists, to such extremes 
had persecution driven them, and the government was 
forced to close their rooms after they had been in ex- 
istence for something over a month. Of the royalist 
outbursts we have spoken in another connection. The 
law of hostages did not diminish them. Brittany, Poi- 
tou, and Normandy were almost as troublesome as the 



ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 241 

south, and at Bordeaux the most formidable of all the 
uprisings openly shouted the significant watchword of 
'The king and religion." To such a pass had matters 
come — danger from without, anarchy within — that the 
multitudes longed for a deliverer. The circumstances 
wdiich caused utter confusion both in relisrion and in 
politics were simultaneous and seemed to the million 
identical. The most dangerous of all shallow conclu- 
sions had been slowly forced on all Frenchmen except 
the few — to wit, that political reaction could alone save 
the cause of religion. 

It is impossible to foresee what might other^wise have 
happened; but at this particular juncture the overpow- 
ering fact was Bonaparte's return from Egypt. Here 
was a deliverer. His prestige as regards the Egyptian 
campaign was enormously inflated. But at least, even 
though the turn had come and the French arms were 
already winning some victories, there was still a 
marked contrast between the reputed oriental con- 
queror and the discredited men of the Directory. More- 
over, his relations to the papacy were in vivid contrast 
to theirs. Bonaparte's Italian campaign had been di- 
rected against Austria. In his successes the Directory 
saw an opportunity to destroy the papacy. The young 
general, on the other hand, was mainly actuated by 
strategic considerations, a desire to leave no powerful 
foe on his flanks as he pressed on to the northeast ; he 
therefore entered into negotiations w4th the central and 
south Italian states, including the papal power, with 
that single object wxU in view. The armistice of Bo- 
logna (1796) was denounced when Pius VI. refused 
the terms of the Directory, but Bonaparte, on his own 
authority, renewed the negotiations through Mattei. 
The treaty of Tolentino (February nineteenth, 1797), 
though it stripped the papacy of its territorial strength 



242 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

and its wealth, left the Pope a free agent to keep the 
implied promise he made that some arrangement be- 
tween the two factions of the French Romanists and 
the republic in France should be considered and ma- 
tured when the time was ripe ; that social order should 
be restored, and the scandals of wide-spread debauchery 
banished by a renewed combination of the spiritual 
and secular powers. On August third, 1797, Bona- 
parte outlined the policy of renewing the Corcordat in 
some form by a letter addressed to Caleppi, the papal 
legate at Florence. It was assuredly no work of Bona- 
parte's which, during his absence in Egypt, fomented 
revolutionary violence at Rome and compelled the de- 
portation to France of Pius VI. The aged prelate 
did not long survive the sorrow. He died a prisoner 
in Valence, at the age of eighty-two, on August twenty- 
ninth, 1799. For this shameful treatment of a harm- 
less old man the Directory bears the blame entire. 



XIV 

DESIGN AND FORM OF THE 
CONCORDAT 



XIV 

DESIGN AND FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 

THE Day of Brumaire i8, year VIII. (November 
ninth, 1799) did not differ from its parent Days 
in motive and execution. Once again an intolerable 
government came to an end by the use of military 
force. But this time the army had not many masters ; 
it had only one, a favorite young general who was at 
the same time a national hero. Napoleon Bonaparte 
did not secure the chieftaincy of France at thirty be- 
cause of his proven capacities, but because the nation 
believed itself in urgent need of him. Brumaire exem- 
plified contempt for law under the shallowest pretence 
of observing legal forms. There was no concealment 
of this fact, and in a high degree France was as- 
tounded. 

But her astonishment indicated relief and not indig- 
nation. Any change directed by an effective power 
would be an improvement, for under the conditions 
prevalent since Fructidor France had sounded the 
depths of feebleness, and consequently of social disin- 
tegration and degradation. There had been during 
that period an average of one divorce for every eleven 
marriages ; whether a child were legitimate or not was 
to many minds a matter of indifference, for some 
thought civil marriage sufficient, some were content 
with the marriages of the Constitutionals, some only 
with those of the nonjuring refractories. Thousands 

245 



246 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

were united only in Theophilanthropy, and other thou- 
sands were utterly indifferent to marriage in any form ; 
Paris and the great towns were almost brothels, and 
the Palais Royal, then the very heart of the capi- 
tal, was one vast exchange for all the known forms of 
vice. The validity of land sales and business trans- 
actions of every sort was constantly in question, for 
the future still hung in the balance; the law was un- 
certain and courts were venal. State and family being 
therefore menaced at every point, and the ecclesias- 
tical situation being such as has been already outlined, 
things could not be worse ; they must grow better. 

The provisional Consulate had no sooner come into 
existence than evidence of this conviction accumulated 
in every direction. A heavy hand was laid, wherever 
it was possible, on all violations of public decency, and 
on such practices as could not be instantly checked 
enormous contributions were levied. The fear of a 
tried army, loyal to a single man, and of a semi-mili- 
tary police weighed upon the spirits of the malefactors. 
The administration of justice, civil and criminal alike, 
was momentarily changed as if by magic; business 
revived, and the public credit rose by leaps and bounds. 
In less than two months three peremptory decrees were 
issued by the provisional Consulate which overturned 
all compulsory legislation regarding the offensive De- 
cadis, substituted a mere promise of fidelity to the con- 
stitution for the odious oath of hatred to royalty so far 
required of all officiating priests, and enjoined on all 
magistrates the enforcement of the laws securing free- 
dom of religious worship. Almost as a matter of 
course such churches as had not been sold were re- 
opened for services, and the ashes of Pius VI. were 
decently interred with the splendid ritual of the Roman 
Church, 



FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 247 

The work of seven lean years — years of violent over- 
turnings, of confiscations, of social devolution, of reli- 
gious persecution, of political anarchy and chaos — 
seemed already to the great masses of the French to 
have been undone effectually and permanently. For 
years Bonaparte had been discussing with Sieyes and 
other political philosophers the nature of constitu- 
tions. From their thoughts and his own he had 
evolved a charter which was not only novel and origi- 
nal, as he and the devotees of his cause believed, but a 
panacea for the troubles of French democracy. When 
the Constitution of the Year VIII. was promulgated, 
cumbrous, complex, and absurd as it is, a worried, har- 
ried, superficial people hailed it as a wonder, and ac- 
cepted it but too gladly. At least it guaranteed the 
achievements of the Revolution regarding civil liberty, 
and it was self-evident that religious liberty in some 
degree w^ould be secure under its aegis. To its utter 
disregard of political liberty ohly a few thoughtful and 
patriotic men gave serious heed. 

Now religious liberty was no better understood in 
France on the fall of the contemptible Directory than 
it had been by the enlightened and generous Constitu- 
ent Assembly. The various points of view still held 
were much what they had always been. The only per- 
ceptible change was in the readjustment of the num- 
bers who supported them. The great mass of the 
French people appeared, in its latest adjustment and 
in spite of all vicissitudes, to be absolutely unchanged, 
for thousands had reverted to the French tradition of 
thirteen hundred years — viz., that all ecclesiastical le- 
gitimacy lay in the spiritual mission of the Pope and 
in the canonical institution of all ministers through 
him. These were of course ecclesiastical aristocrats in 
a sense, because, in order to secure what they likewise 



248 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

firmly held as a part of French tradition, namely, the 
dependency of the ecclesiastical on the secular author- 
ity, they considered popular election abominable and 
the appointing power to be just as inherent in the state 
as investiture was in the papacy. 

These conservatives enjoyed the hearty support not 
merely of those who had religious convictions identical 
with theirs, but likewise of a powerful royalist party 
which was secretly agitating, if not for the restoration 
of the Bourbons, at least for the establishment of mon- 
archy in some form. The Constitutionals, no longer 
so in reality, but still designated by the well-worn term, 
were, on the other hand, evangelistic and consequently 
democratic to the core ; they relished the oath of hatred 
to royalty, and believed both in the popular choice of 
ministers and in qualified Presbyterianism as a form of 
church polity. But' they were Roman Catholics nev- 
ertheless; their last of^cial utterance was an invoca- 
tion to the Pope for unity in the Catholic, Apostolic, 
Roman Church, a call for canonical mission as a con- 
dition precedent to the ministerial service and an ex- 
pression of willingness to accept the authority of non- 
juring bishops and priests consecrated before 1791, 
provided only that the incumbent already inducted 
under the Civil Constitution should have the succession 
in office.^ They deplored the existence of schism, and 
vainly entreated Pius to heal the breach. There are 
no trustworthy statistics as to their numbers,^ but prob- 
ably their adherents included a third of the professed 
Catholics. Of fifteen churches open for worship in 
Paris, they occupied five. 

^ Annales de la Religion, V. claims and on very doubtful 

524. Theiner, Doc. Ined., I. indications. Gregoire, Me- 

463. moires, II. 94, claimed the ma- 

^ These very uncertain ap- jority of the faithful as ad- 

proximations are based solely herents of the Constitutional 

on the most widely conflicting Church. 



FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 249 

Likewise, there was still the small body, also in- 
determinate, of the Freethinkers, as they came to be 
styled, of those who were Protestants at heart and of 
the Jews ; these were, all told, perhaps five per cent, of 
the nation. What they lacked in numbers they sup- 
plied by brains, wit, and fiery resolution. They ab- 
horred the idea of another bargain with the now 
irregular and contemptible papacy, and they were still 
in high places where they could make their abhorrence 
a power to be reckoned with. 

Here, then, was the most complicated and difficult 
problem which could confront a budding statesman. 
The solution, of course, turned solely on the question of 
his own choice, for Bonaparte's battalions could enforce 
his will. That choice was determined by several con- 
siderations. To win France there must be a display at 
least of moral courage as well as of military force, and 
to that end it was well discreetly to antagonize all par- 
ties ecclesiastical as well as political. To sustain a 
power once won a chief of state must have the hearty 
support not of hack politicians and worn-out partisans, 
but of the vigorous rising stock of younger Frenchmen. 
These were best represented by Royer-Collard, who 
had announced to the Five Hundred the absolute neces- 
sity of a compact between the religious hierarchy, which 
controlled the consciences of the vast number of 
Frenchmen, and any government which might hope to 
control their persons and estates. 

This was a most unpalatable announcement to the 
French liberals, and was, moreover, both fallacious and 
untrue. But it represented the conviction of the nation 
as a whole ; government must either support or destroy 
the religious confession of the majority. Reciprocity 
or destruction. The various governments of the Revo- 
lution had refused reciprocity; their fate was well 
known. One thing the First Consul did — this particu- 



250 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

lar Scylla he avoided; did he in choosing Royer-Col- 
lard's alternative fall into Charybdis ? Before seeking 
an answer to this question we must note one more ele- 
ment in Bonaparte's choice which appeared later — that 
which may be designated the international. The intes- 
tine disorders of France once regulated, the position of 
her ruler in relation to the European sovereigns would 
be enormously strengthened by the support of the 
papacy, especially in regard to her nearest neighbors — 
Spain, Italy, and the Empire. These, with numerous 
minor considerations, such as speed, instinctive lean- 
ings, facility of ruse in prospective negotiation, deter- 
mined the First Consul's choice. 

The final act, therefore, in the religious history of 
France during the revolutionary epoch was the Con- 
cordat of 1 80 1, arranged between Bonaparte and Pius 
VIL, a treaty which- still seems a wonder of statesman- 
ship to many, for it held good under the Empire, w^as 
overthrown, then reestablished, and, after various vi- 
cissitudes, was incorporated in the fundamental law of 
France, remaining operative to this day under repub- 
lican government substantially as it was finally adopted 
under a monarchy. Concerning this arrangement, as 
might be expected, two antipodal views have been and 
still are held. Some see in it a stroke of imperial 
Napoleonic policy — the restoration of Christianity and 
the overthrow of infidelity with no other than a purely 
political purpose — the adroit use of this spiritual tri- 
umph by an usurper to bolster his assumption of auto- 
cratic power, the return for this end to a system which 
fifteen years earlier was already an anachronism. The 
Concordat, as matters have arranged themselves, has 
enabled the church to crush both Galileans and Jan- 
senists. But, on the other hand, its abolition would 
make clericalism triumphant. 



FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 251 

Others uphold the Concordat as an act of far-seeing 
statesmanship, the destruction of social chaos at one 
blow, the restoration of religious liberty to the French 
in a form suited to their habits and convictions, a 
wise compromise between the Avarring factions of the 
church, the consequent guarantee of religious indepen- 
dence to Protestants, Jews, and Freethinkers. 

Both views disregard the most important element 
and overlook the '^organic laws" which were and re- 
main part and parcel of the system inaugurated by the 
Concordat; both alike mistake the historic facts, con- 
sidering the radical but admirable theory of a free 
church in a free state as having been an accomplished 
fact undone by the Concordat, whereas, as we have 
seen, the reality behind the screen of theory was a 
tyrannical persecution practised on all who strove to 
secure the exercise of religious liberty as an operative 
system. Both, therefore, are entirely unhistorical. 

To a just understanding of the Concordat of 1801 a 
general view of ecclesiastical conditions at that time is 
essential. The mediaeval system of an independent, in- 
clusive church organization, enforcing its commands 
by assistance from the temporal power, was represented 
and upheld by the orthodox conservative Romanists 
of all lands ; they regarded the church as the source of 
secular power, or at least as preexistent to all secular 
power, and this was the firm conviction of at least a 
small majority of Frenchmen. Alone among the na- 
tions of Europe, Spain and Italy successfully main- 
tained a divine-right political system and unity of the 
faith with tolerance. 

The French monarchy had exerted itself to the ut- 
most in behalf of this theory. But it had failed be- 
cause its subjects were too enlightened to accept the 
doctrines taught by the Casuists. It was the Casuists 



252 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

who had wrought the counter-Reformation elsewhere in 
Europe, and who won to their convictions the crown, 
the higher aristocracy, and the prelacy in France. But, 
as we have seen at the outset, the common sense of 
other Frenchmen, the burghers, the lower aristocracy, 
the professional classes, and the lawyers particularly, 
rejected casuistry with disgust. Some of these men 
took refuge in a plain biblical ethic, others in the stern 
logic of the Roman law, a system whose precepts had 
permeated much that was best in French life. 

The modified system of tolerance inaugurated by 
what is called the age of enlightened despotism made 
the sovereign the official head of the church (Csesaro- 
papism) both in Protestant and Catholic countries. 
In France, Germany, and Austria the attempt was made 
to establish a national church, with local organization 
and liturgy, Catholic in its union with the church uni- 
versal, by the admission of spiritual supremacy as resi- 
dent in the Pope, and by a common faith. The practical 
workings of this system, however, had destroyed eccle- 
siastical sovereignty by means of certain rigid restric- 
tions, under which alone the secular power enforced 
the practice of religion and obedience to the clergy. 
No decision could be published without secular authori- 
zation (placet), nor executed without governmental 
confirmation (exequatur) , and lay courts could reverse 
the ecclesiastical sentences (recursus ah abusu). This 
secular control was further extended by tolerating any 
form of faith and worship as subordinate to the state 
church, or even still further enlarged by putting sev- 
eral state churches on a parity. 

These measures really turned ecclesiastics into state 
officials. They were selected by the government, and 
as its agents only held and retained their privileges — 
viz., precedence, estates, endowments, special taxation. 



FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 253 

freedom from military service, regulation of educa- 
tion, control of the laity, censorship of books, regula- 
tion of marriage, and the right to record vital statis- 
tics. Such was the system for which Gallicans and 
Jansenists had contended in France, and which was 
still supported by the Constitutional clergy of France ; 
they were sustained in their contention by a large mi- 
nority of Frenchmen. The plan was substantially that 
of the Reformation in Protestant lands. The Revo- 
lution, however, had sought utterly to ignore the eccle- 
siastical organization in all lands, to withdraw all state 
support, to have the government organize and control 
education, to secularize all ecclesiastical estates, to de- 
stroy all ecclesiastical courts, to cancel religious vows, 
to regulate by secular legislation the laws of marriage, 
to have the administration keep all vital statistics — in 
short, absolutely and completely to separate church 
and state. 

Had the realization of this revolutionary ideal been 
entrusted to the friends of Christianity, or had there 
been in France any truly vigorous body of conserva- 
tive religious men with a just conception of the prob- 
lem, true progress of substantial value might have been 
made. But the fanatical radicals who agitated in favor 
of ecclesiastical freedom had not the vaguest conception 
of real liberty, either political or religious. Acting in 
the heathen spirit of disdain for every form of Chris- 
tianity, they united all other Frenchmen against them. 

Bonaparte had made himself the man of the hour; 
men saw him in the glamour produced partly by the 
prodigies of his military success and partly by the equal 
prodigy of his political skill in securing and holding a 
non-partisan attitude at Paris. He had a single end in 
view, the reunion of French hearts in the largest pos- 
sible majority. He must make himself indispensable 



254 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

to France, fulfil her hopes, show himself the promised 
saviour of society. To this and this alone he was for 
the moment devoted. 

Accordingly, he devised a compromise between the 
system of enlightened despotism and that of the ad- 
vanced Freethinkers. The law he framed was not in 
any sense, however, a mere social convenience; it was 
a foundation stone in his new political structure. De- 
termined to suppress alike the White and the Red 
Terror, as he himself expressed it, he aimed to re- 
store the hierarchy in name and form, but in so doing 
he intended to make it subject to the secular power 
without reserve, keeping intact, as he wished men 
to think, both the immemorial tradition of secular 
supremacy and the fundamental principle of the Revo- 
lution — absolute religious liberty and ec[uality, with- 
out leaving a shred of clerical authority or a vestige 
of the canon law. By the "organic laws," with which 
Pope and church had nothing to do, and which he 
made in direct contravention of canon law, he regu- 
lated most stringently the general relations of the 
church with the state laws and the police. Under these 
rigid rules the secular power was intended to be su- 
preme, controlling clerical authority, the publication 
of papal decrees, the sending of nuncios, the holding 
of councils, the creation of bishoprics and parishes, 
even the establishment of public religious festivals. 

This is the point to which attention must be drawn 
in considering the events prior to the reestablishment 
of the Roman Catholic Church in France under the 
Concordat. In Italy, Bonaparte posed as an orthodox 
Roman Catholic Christian, in Egypt as a Moslem, in 
France as a radical ; he was all things to all men. He 
felt the mystery of religion to be purely social, as does 
the advanced liberal theology of our day. These are 



FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 255 

almost his ipsissima verba. He dwelt especially on 
Christianity as an equalizer, and preferred its Found- 
er's teachings to those of any other prophet, since hy 
them the longing for the unknown was more safely 
gratified, as he said, than by those of Cagliostro, Kant, 
or any German dreamer. The levelling system of 
primitive Christianity was the remedy for social dis- 
content; the black army of priests was the guarantee 
of internal peace, as the white or soldier army was the 
safeguard against foreign aggression. 

When, therefore, he was once more on European soil 
he behaved accordingly. At Milan, on the morrow of 
Marengo (June, 1800), he professed the Catholic, 
Apostolic, and Roman faith *'as the only religion which 
gives the state a firm and durable support." At Mal- 
maison he had already confessed the profound emotion 
he felt on hearing the church bell of Rueil, ''so strong 
is the power of habit and education." ^ Finally, he was 
evidently determined to have the sacred vial broken 
over his head as himself constituting and representing 
the supreme power in both state and church. To crush 
social anarchy, to make religion a prop to the govern- 
ment, to preserve the focal revolutionary principle of 
religious liberty by the parity of sects under state pa- 
tronage and under the law — these were the ends of the 
Concordat.^ 

How w^ere victories so amazing, a triumph so com- 
plete, to be wrested from the papacy? How was a reli- 
gious charter to be forced upon a France that was 

^ Mercier, Paris pendant la Aulard, Histoire Politique, 

Revolution, II. 443. "Les p. 734. Bonaparte held that but 

cloches n'ont jamais fait tant for religion social inequalities 

de bruit depuis qu'on les a fait could not exist. He wanted 

taire." religion for the sake of "ser- 

" See Roederer, QEuvres. III. vantes, cordonniers." and the 

335. Likewise the manuscript like — that is, to keep the com- 

note of Gregoire quoted in mon people content. 



256 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

reactionary and radical in about equal proportions? 
The facts are briefly these. By the Treaty of Tolen- 
tino, Bonaparte, though stripping the papacy of its 
earthly goods, had left the skeleton of its secular and 
temporal power intact. During his absence in Egypt 
the Directory, having revolutionized both central and 
southern Italy, had first lost its strength there, then 
elsewhere and everywhere, at home and abroad. In 
particular, by a series of overwhelming disasters to the 
French armies, Austria had reestablished control over 
all northern Italy. Pope Pius VI. having died in exile, 
the college of cardinals had been dispersed ; there was 
pending what seemed likely to be a long interregnum 
in the chair of St. Peter's. 

Seizing the opportunity of his transient victories in 
Italy, Francis, the emperor at Vienna, convened thirty- 
five of the cardinals in conclave at Venice on November 
thirtieth, 1799. After a series of unseemly intrigues 
and disgraceful wrangles, which for week after week 
endangered the very existence of the ecclesiastical sys- 
tem the members were met to perpetuate and sustain. 
Cardinal Chiaramonte was finally chosen Pope; on 
March fourteenth, 1800, he was proclaimed as Pius 
VII. The procedure from first to last was irregular 
in canon law and unsupported by ecclesiastical tra- 
dition. 

As Bishop of Imola the new Pope had issued a pas- 
toral letter during the French invasion of 1798 arguing 
that between Roman Catholicism and revolutionary in- 
stitutions there was no essential incompatibility. He 
was therefore hailed as a liberal, and proved to be one. 
From Milan, Bonaparte, whose Marengo campaign 
had just confirmed his mastery in France, made known 
at Rome, by the intermediation of Cardinal Martiniana, 
his desire for a solution of the French ecclesiastical 



FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 257 

problem.^ The Pope eagerly despatched two envoys, 
who followed Bonaparte to Paris ; these were Arch- 
bishop Spina, a capable negotiator, and F. Caselli, an 
adroit theologian. The negotiators on the other side 
were quickly chosen ; they were the bland and versatile 
Talleyrand and the Abbe Bernier,^ an able, supple, and 
accomplished Vendean, who had been instrumental in 
establishing the authority of the Consulate throughout 
the troubled district in which was his home.^ 

The terms proposed by Bonaparte were: first, the 
voluntary resignation of the entire French episcopate; 
second, the sanction of the sale of ecclesiastical, now 
called national, properties, as decreed by the National 
Assembly; third, the reapportionment of dioceses so 
as to diminish the episcopate one half (to fifty bishops 
and twelve archbishops) ; and, fourth, the recognition 
of the Constitutional clergy in the new arrangement. 

The first of these points was, in Bonaparte's opinion, 
the most vital. He could not restore religion except 
under circumstances that would neither wound the 
general sense of propriety nor disturb the public peace. 
To secure such conditions it was essential '*to exclude 

^ It was immediately after I. 239. Bernier had an extrav- 

Marengo that the Consulate agant admiration for Bona- 

began to discourage the cele- parte : "Never has any man 

bration of the Decadi, whether more thoroughly grasped the 

by the secular exercises or by meaning of events," was his 

those of the Theophilanthro- judgment. See his extended 

pists. Up to that time little opinion quoted as above, 

more than a change of atti- ^ Theiner. Deux Concordats, 

tude had been noticeable in 2 vols., Paris. 1869, is a store- 

the religious administration house of original documents, 

under the new government. given mostly in the text, but 

"In spite of what our Paris many likewise in an extended 

atheists might say," Bonaparte appendix. Even more com- 

wrote to his colleagues, "a Te plete is the collection of Bou- 

Deum was chanted at Milan lay de la Aleurthe. Documents 

for the victory." sur la Negociation du Con- 

' Cretineau-Joly. L'Eglise Ro- cordat. 
maine en Face de la Revolution, 



258 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

from office those of the former bishops whose influence 
would tend to disturb the present situation, and who 
since the Revolution seem to have identified their epis- 
copate with one or another government in such a way 
that they neither keep nor use one except to gain the 
other, a course which would be a source of new trouble 
and new anguish to France." 

The First Consul also desired that the titular bishops 
of the new circumscriptions should not be annoyed by 
those whose former titles would now be attached to 
the new bishoprics ; the old incumbents must therefore 
resign as a condition antecedent. Finally, in the case 
of such former bishops as had shown their sterling 
worth and moderation amid all the bygone convulsions 
of France, and who therefore might be continued in 
office, he was determined that they should owe their 
office and know that they so owed it to the *'free choice 
of the government, ratified by His Holiness, and that 
to their promised fidelity they must add the sacred 
bond of a just and proper gratitude." These were the 
three cogent reasons given for the demand which of all 
others would prove most trying to the Pope — a demand 
which destroyed the historic continuity of the French 
episcopate. In support of his requirement Bernier 
cited the demission of the bishops at the time of the 
Donatist schism. As was expected, Spina expostu- 
lated vigorously and argued eloquently, but the French 
negotiators were steadfast and unyielding.^ 

From the very outset the cardinal-archbishop in- 
volved the papal diplomacy in tortuous courses. His 
emissaries were chosen, with suspicious facility, among 
men of every grade in belief, and even among men of 
no faith whatsoever. It was a singular lack of tact 

^ Tlieiner, Les Deux Concordats, prints Bernier's notes as 
original document, No. XIV. 



FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 259 

which induced him to send the atheist astronomer 
Lalande to act as a mediator with Gregoire. If the 
regular bishops were not to resign, it was essential that 
the Constitutionals should; and in a shrewd circular 
Spina begged each and all to see eye to eye with him. 

Gregoire's response ^ was a plain-spoken statement 
of facts as he saw them; but one and all, he with the 
rest, the Constitutional bishops resigned. They under- 
stood that preliminary to all reorganization there 
would be a virtual act of oblivion, whether the Pope 
so willed or not, and they yielded to wdiat they felt was 
chicane for the sake of principles they had so vigor- 
ously enunciated; they could not hold up their heads 
as honest men while persisting in any course that would 
perpetuate the schism. But the diplomatic wiles of 
the papal envoy were noted; and, being clearly under- 
stood by two men who were no tyros in the same arts, 
their influence and example were held in reserve to 
provide and offset a fitting climax. At the last fateful 
moment the papacy was defeated by a simple parry. 
The original bishops, like the Constitutionals, had to 
lay down their staves and mitres ; and when but a cer- 
tain number resumed the symbols of their office, it was 
at the behest of the state and not of the church. 

Possibly the most searching question in the whole 
procedure was, as Bonaparte maintained, the disposi- 
tion of the clerical estates. It was so at least from the 
social standpoint, for a great prelate must needs change 
his heart and his garment both if the ecclesiastical es- 
tates were to remain sequestered. Here the advice of 
Gregoire appears to have been determinative. He 
spent much time at Malmaison with Bonaparte, pacing 
the shrubberies and garden-paths, reasoning of the 
papacy, its essence, its purpose, and the means of 

^ Annales de la Religion, XIV. 31, cited in Gregoire, II. 97. 



26o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

negotiating with it. Noting that the serious delin- 
quencies of the popedom were one and all due to the 
secular character of its court, which, moreover, was 
narrowly Italian and not catholic at all, he proposed 
to meet its worldly guile with the nicest punctilio, and, 
while pressing essentials, yield in all possible points to 
nervous sensibility. Accordingly, by his advice the 
Pope was requested not to ratify, approve, nor sanction 
the sale of ecclesiastical estates, but merely to recognize 
the legality and validity of such sales. Spina assever- 
ated the sinfulness of sequestrating church property, 
and hoped the sin might be diminished by a restoration 
in part at least. Bernier was again unmovable; the 
actual owners were in legal possession, and to unsettle 
what was done in this respect would arouse such gen- 
eral animosity as to render ecclesiastical reorganization 
impossible. 

The other perplexities were met in exactly the same 
way. Bernier insisted that more than half of the an- 
cient dioceses should disappear; Spina protested, and 
schemed to thwart his imperious opponent, but all in 
vain. The episcopate as reconstructed should consist of 
sixty-two prelates, twelve archbishops and fifty bishops, 
one for each of the new dioceses. Similarly, both Bona- 
parte and Talleyrand took the ground that the interests 
of the Constitutionals were just as dear to them as 
were those of the nonjurors to His Holiness. Political 
peace had been reestablished in France by disregard of 
the near past, of its parties, its quarrels, and its bit- 
terness ; peace was speedily to be restored among Con- 
tinental nations by the treaty in negotiation at Lune- 
ville, likewise by consigning the past to oblivion; in 
no other way could religious peace be established than 
by forgetting and forgiving the past, and then equally 
distributing the reconstituted power. "Religious 



FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 261 

peace," wrote the sometime Bishop of Autun, ''cannot 
be effected except by reuniting all consciences and every 
denomination of ecclesiastics under the benign and 
paternal authority of the Holy See." ^ This attitude 
Spina declared to be totally impracticable, and so firm 
was he that the question — the only one of the four 
which was so treated — was not urged, and its discus- 
sion was suspended. 

During the two months of preliminary negotiations 
at Paris, Bonaparte maintained as resident plenipoten- 
tiary in Rome a sometime republican named Cacault, 
the same whom in 1796 he had ordered to "dodge the 
old fox," Pius VI. The minister was now instructed 
to treat Pius VH. "as if he were master of two hun- 
dred thousand men." During this period four suc- 
cessive drafts of a treaty embodying the French de- 
mands were sent to Rome, and, in spite of Cacault's 
intimidation, rejected by the Pope. Pius and Con- 
salvi, his confidential Secretary of State, were as in- 
tractable as the French ministers. Considering the 
irregular source of Pius's office and power, — an irregu- 
larity which he tacitly admitted in excusing his ulti- 
mate compliance with distasteful demands, — he dis- 
played great courage. His tenacity was to a certain 
extent diplomatic. He had little purchase for resisting, 
for he must have recalled that the earliest religious act 
of the Consulate (3 Nivose) was a virtual restoration 
of such among the transported priests as were not 
hardened political agitators. He must have remem- 
bered how, next, the body of Pius VI. had been re- 
stored to Rome with appropriate churchly services ; and 
how, finally, as has been told, for the terrible oath ex- 
acted under the Directory was substituted a simple 
promise of loyalty to the constitution; he was well 

^Talleyrand to Bernier. Theiner, Deux Concordalb, I. lOi. 



262 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

aware that in early summer the still existing church 
edifices were reopened for orthodox worship. In spite 
of Fouche's too voluble assertions that all this meant 
little, only one interpretation could be put on these 
facts, and this Pius saw. There was complete eman- 
cipation, even for the refractory clergy. 

The end of papal procrastination was reached in a 
way characteristic of the budding emperor, the dicta- 
torial Napoleon. In May the Pope was notified by 
Bernier that no further modifications to the proposed 
Concordat would even be considered at Paris, and that 
if there were further delays the French minister would 
be recalled within five days and negotiations ended. 
Cacault suggested as a last resort that Consalvi be dele- 
gated to make personal representations to the First Con- 
sul. The proposition was eagerly accepted, and Bona- 
parte's menace was so far fulfilled that th^ papal and 
French diplomats left Rome together, the latter taking 
up his abode temporarily in Florence, while the former 
proceeded to Paris. Consalvi composed his memoirs 
eleven years after the events which he records and 
under the influence of resentment ; they are not reliable. 
In his despatch to Cardinal Doria, written at the time,^ 
he states that in his very first interview with Bonaparte 
he was cordially received, and obtained the promise 
of certain modifications, and this in spite of the wide- 
spread public opinion in Paris bitterly opposing recon- 
ciliation with Rome, a fact noted by the envoy himself. 
The regular succession of gains made by France both 
in war and diplomacy went far to strengthen Bona- 
parte. After the victory of Hohenlinden he withdrew 
his offer to declare the Catholic religion that of the 

^ Theiner, Deux Concordats, 241. Consalvi's memory was 

I. 173, gives the original. Cf. worthless, or else his motives 

the Memoires of the cardinal were questionable, 
as quoted in Cretineau-Joly, I. 



FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 263 

state; he merely admitted it to be ''that of the great 
majority of French citizens." 

That the Pope's plenipotentiary might clearly under- 
stand how uncertain his position really was, the second 
ecclesiastical council of the Constitutionals was opened 
at Paris on June twenty-ninth. Consalvi diplomati- 
cally ignored all that was passing before his eyes, and 
drew up a memorandum repeating the papal counter- 
demands already made by Spina — viz., that the govern- 
ment should make public profession of adherence to 
Roman Catholicism, guarantee the public exercise of 
Roman Catholic worship (reestablishing it thus as the 
state religion), and not depose the present bishops, 
some eighty or ninety in number. Bonaparte proved 
to be long-suffering. He permitted not five days, but 
more than a fortnight to pass in so-called negotiations ; 
but for all that he remained obdurate on the vital 
points; all that could be construed as the promised 
modifications he would tolerate were certain softenings 
of phraseology. Step by step Consalvi yielded, and 
finally the seventh draft was accepted. It was to be 
signed by the plenipotentiaries of both sides as of July 
fourteenth at the mansion of Joseph Bonaparte. In 
the evening of the same day, and in order to counteract 
the effect on public opinion, the consuls were to give a 
public banquet commemorating the fall of the Bastille, 
for it was the anniversary of that occurrence. 



XV 

ENFORCEMENT OF THE 
CONCORDAT 



XV 

ENFORCEMENT OF THE CONCORDAT 

THE course and character of the negotiations be- 
tween the high contracting parties of the Con- 
cordat give Httle or no clew to the extraordinary events 
subsequent to its negotiation and just precedent to its 
signature. Charges and counter-charges of dupHcity 
and fraud rolled over the ecclesiastical sky, and their 
mutterings are still heard. Viewed from one stand- 
point, all the diplomacy employed on one side and the 
other was hollow, for at home the First Consul unques- 
tionably had the power to enforce any commands he 
chose to lay upon the Gallican Church, while abroad 
the papacy had lost its last great prop by the utter 
humiliation of the Austrian emperor in the Peace of 
Luneville. Francis IL uttered a cry of anguish in the 
confession that he had exhausted his monarchy, that 
thus he had lost the imperial position in the European 
balance of power, and that he now was so weak that 
he had not a single trustworthy ally. 

What was loss to the Austrian monarchy was almost 
the annihilation of the papacy's secular power, for the 
temporalities granted by the treaty to the successor of 
St. Peter did not include the legations and the Ro- 
magna, while the continuance of temporal power in any 
form was due solely to the good will of a young gen- 
eral who was very slippery indeed when dogma was 
the matter in hand. The Treaty of Luneville bore the 

267 



268 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

date of February ninth, 1801. In view of irregulari- 
ties in his election, in view of the Hapsburg humilia- 
tion, in view of his complete dependence on France, 
which now had not a single Continental power in arms 
against her — considering all this, Pius VII. and his 
agents had shown amazing tenacity of purpose and 
reliance on such purely moral supports as they could 
discern. Great daring was manifest throughout their 
negotiations, especially in their defiance of the time 
limits set by Bonaparte, who was in hot haste and im- 
patient of resistance.^ 

Consalvi, moreover, had at the close to face and 
reckon with what was the reality of a new ecclesiastical 
organization, the nucleus and possibility of a schism 
that would be almost as disastrous to Rome as was the 
Reformation of the sixteenth century. There before 
his very eyes sat a "national council," comprising not 
only forty-three prelates, but likewise other delegates 
who claimed to represent fifty-two dioceses. The 
leader of the body asserted that for three years past no 
fewer than thirty-four thousand churches had been 
under its auspices; eighty synods and eight metropoli- 
tan councils had preceded this second national coun- 
cil.^ Surely and steadily, the Constitutionals claimed, 
this organization was adapting itself to the national 
wants, conceding the choice of its pastors to the people, 
unifying and enriching the liturgy, and exhibiting its 
patriotism by summoning the Bishop of Lyons to pre- 
side as Primate of the Gauls. 

Shut his eyes as he might and did to such a portent, 

^ The authorities for this Concordat ; de Pradt, Qttatre 

chapter are as before : the orig- Concordats ; PortaHs, Concor- 

inal documents printed in dat de 1801 ; Cretineau-Joly, 

Theiner, Documents Inedits L'^^glise Romaine en Face de 

and Deux Concordats, and in la Revolution. 
Boulay de la Meurthe, Docu- ' Gregoire. Memoires, II. 91, 

ments sur la Negociation du 99. 



ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 269 

Consalvi could not misunderstand the first consul's al- 
lusion when he jokingly referred to this synod in the 
remark that ''when terms cannot be had from God 
you must come to an understanding with the devil." ^ 
The papal secretary kept a bold front, but inwardly he 
was sore afraid, and his fear was exhibited in his guile. 
Exclaiming that he was willing to advance to the gates 
of hell, but not further, Pius, with the assent of the 
Sacred College, had on his secretary's departure aban- 
doned resistance to the mom.entous but inevitable step 
initial to all progress — the resignation of the Ultramon- 
tane bishops; Consalvi stooped to reopen this very 
question, and astutely distorted for his purpose the 
vaunted Gallican liberties of 1687. Bernier must have 
been disgusted at such wiles, but the First Consul, 
though immovable as to essentials, grudgingly acceded 
to the suggestion that the Pope might frame his own 
address to his faithful bishops, French officials though 
they were. Bonaparte further consented to the omis- 
sion of several rude expressions and the modification 
of some trying phrases. There he paused and stood 
firm. 

But the despotism which was latent in the Direc- 
tory and carefully arranged in the constitution of the 
Consulate was still potential rather than real. The 
new chief executive of France had his own troubles. 
Only nine years had elapsed — and in military glory 
they had been years of wonder — since the time when 
a godless commonwealth, radically democratic, close- 
knit in its centralization and as zealous to be all-inclu- 
sive as were ever the political systems of Romanism 
and Calvinism, had been the ideal of a majority of 
ardent Frenchmen. While most of the old-line radi- 
cals of eminence had fallen into the pit they had digged 
^ Quoted in Jervis, Gallican Church, p. 346. 



2^0 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

for others, and had perished miserably under various 
pretences, yet there remained a few even of them, and 
there were enormous numbers of Freethinkers who had 
been nourished on modifications, more or less complete, 
of the radical doctrine. To all these the very thought 
of a composition with Rome was abhorrent. The 
Consulate began as a civilian government — even Bona- 
parte wore a frock coat; as such it professed amity 
for all classes, with a deprecatory preference as far as 
possible for republicans. 

But as time passed and the constitution adopted by 
the popular vote gave the First Consul a firmer seat, 
the republicans grew uneasy, and finally sore. A rigid 
censorship of the press was established, the old repub- 
lican simplicity of manners disappeared, forms of po- 
liteness associated with the monarchy were revived ; as 
the consular court was gradually organized in osten- 
tatious modesty, persons long in hiding were seen to be 
preferred in honor; contrasting the case of the old 
nobility with the stiffness of the republicans, Bona- 
parte sneered that only the former possessed the art of 
domestic service, and pleaded that fact as an excuse 
for surrounding himself with them. 

Finally the attempted assassination of the chief mag- 
istrate, on December twenty- fourth, 1800, was falsely 
attributed not to the real culprits, the royalists, but to a 
radical conspiracy that never existed; consequently a 
hundred and thirty irreconcilable republicans were pro- 
scribed and transported to various tropical prisons; 
some thirty more were placed under police supervision, 
and four were executed for treasonable utterances. It 
was not until April, 1801, that the real assassins, a 
royalist named Saint-Regeant and his accomplice Car- 
bon, were guillotined. The royalists and republicans 
alike suspected a coming monarchy; as a substitute 



ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 271 

for the legitimate Bourbons it would be as great an 
abomination to the former as any monarchy whatso- 
ever would be to the latter. 

Both these antipodal factions, therefore, were fierce 
and alert. If the Consulate were to survive it must 
win the Roman Catholic masses by a Concordat, meet 
papal guile with equal wiliness, and if it were to with- 
stand the active politicians its agreement must handle 
the papacy with no consideration. As the great anni- 
versary of the republican calendar, July fourteenth, 
drew near there was much agitation in Paris over the 
idea of a Concordat as inseparable from a return to 
monarchy in some form. It showed itself in the legis- 
lature, in the administration, among the social leaders, 
the men of science, letters, and art. On July thir- 
teenth the Constitutional clergy instigated a formal 
and vigorous protest against it — a protest so menacing 
that when it was shown to Consalvi even he was awed 
by the situation of the consular government.^ 

These are the conditions which explain the curious 
and interesting interlude which was played by clever 
actors between the negotiation and formal signing of 
the Concordat. The facts as far as given to the world 
are most dramatic. For greater convenience the actual 
signing was to be done on the thirteenth of July. The 
negotiators therefore met on that day at the appointed 
hour and place. On the table lay what was ostensibly 
an engrossed copy of the paper as arranged by Con- 
salvi and Bernier. The papal envoy took up his pen, 
and before yielding to inevitable fate ran his eye hastily 
over the document. According to his own account, he 
was dumfounded; the copy was in the unmodified 

^ See Theiner, Deux Concor- spatches are in Boulay, III. 223 
dats ; Consalvi, Memoires. et seq. 
The cardinal's original de- 



272 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

form of the original demands ! Joseph Bonaparte ex- 
amined the paper, and was sincerely amazed. Bernier 
asseverated that the paper was just as he had received 
it from the hands of the First Consul. Apparently both 
cardinal and abbe were filled with horror and dis- 
may. But, according to the account of Bernier's 
friends, Consalvi already knew what he had to expect, 
and was acting a part. In any case, the papal legate 
threw down his pen and declared himself the victim 
of a fraud. If the genuine document were not to be 
signed he thought the sitting should end at once. 

It does not seem possible to prove or disprove the 
charge of attempted fraud; diplomacy as practised by 
all parties had its own devious ways throughout the 
revolutionary epoch. It is denied as well as asserted 
that moderate republicans and radicals had joined that 
very day in another violent remonstrance to the First 
Consul against the Concordat. Nor is it possible to 
prove what is asserted, that, yielding to his own in- 
clination, Bonaparte had restored the terse language 
of his original demand, and that Consalvi was aware 
of the fact. In any case, what followed is unprece- 
dented if Consalvi were sincere in his professions of 
ignorance. How could that have been possible which 
is certain, that under Joseph Bonaparte's calming in- 
fluence negotiations were renewed then and there, last- 
ing for nineteen unbroken hours, until noon of the next 
day ? By that time agreement was reached as to every 
article except one, that which stipulated the liberty of 
the Catholic worship and the publicity of its exercise. 
This was referred to Napoleon, and the little congress 
of six plenipotentiaries adjourned in complete ex- 
haustion.^ 

* For France : Joseph Bonaparte, Bernier, Cretet ; for 
Rome: Consalvi, Spina, "and Caselli. 



ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 2ji 

The public festival was held, as arranged, on the 
evening of the fourteenth. Consalvi appeared at the 
Tuileries, and when greeted by the First Consul in a 
tone of menace courageously signified his intention to 
depart at once; he had not desired the rupture, for he 
had assented to all the articles except one, and that em- 
bodied a principle concerning which he must consult 
the Holy Father. It was by the friendly intervention 
of Cobentzl, the Austrian ambassador, who was a de- 
vout adherent of the papacy, that arrangement was 
made for a last conference on the morrow. Twelve 
weary hours were again spent in debate, and finally the 
crucial article was by mutual consent worded as fol- 
lows : *'The Catholic worship shall be public, but in 
conformity with such police regulations as the govern- 
ment may judge necessary to the maintenance of the 
public peace (^pro tranqnillitate publicd)." The signa- 
tures were affixed at midnight of July fifteenth-six- 
teenth, 1 80 1. 

Next morning the First Consul was induced by his 
brother Joseph to accept the treaty, apparently with 
great difficulty.^ To us who know Napoleon's dra- 
matic ability, who are familiar with the "Articles Or- 
ganiques" which gave the final form to the Concordat, 
and who recall the contrasts between the gory Terror 
or the ruthless paganism of the Directory and the 
France which thenceforth heard the Catholic, Apos- 
tolic, and Roman religion officially proclaimed as the 
faith of the great majority of French citizens, which 
saw the order go forth that Catholic "worship should 
be freely and publicly exercised under protection of 
the law," — to us, in short, who view the scenes in the 
perspective of history, it appears as if Napoleon Bona- 
parte felt sure he had gained a personal triumph, and 
^ Memoires du Roi Joseph, X. 285. 



274 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

as if he must have rejoiced inwardly, despite his show 
of impatience. 

The rest of his task was comparatively easy; with 
both the French and Italian ^ malcontents he felt that 
he knew how to deal. Apparently, however, he was 
seriously hindered. There were trouble and delay at 
every stage, ostensibly. 

It was on August sixth that Bonaparte in person 
proclaimed the Concordat to the council of state. The 
announcement was received with the icy silence of dis- 
approval. So, too, the Pope found not only small 
encouragement in the college of cardinals as a whole, 
but a determined resistance on the part of several. 
Nevertheless, on August thirteenth he issued a brief 
containing the motives of his action, and on the fif- 
teenth, in the bull "Ecclesia Dei," called on the refrac- 
tory bishops of the French dioceses to resign. Ratifica- 
tions were exchanged between the contracting parties 
on September tenth. It was almost a year later — not 
until April fifth, 1802 — that all preliminaries for put- 
ting the law into execution were arranged and the Con- 
cordat was finally accepted by the legislature. Of 
eighty-one bishops surviving from the old regime, for- 
ty-five resigned and the rest were deposed ; thirteen re- 
fused to acquiesce in their deposition, and, persisting in 
the assertion of an empty dignity, formed the "Little 
Church" already mentioned. In spite of repeated ef- 
forts by Leo XII. and Gregory XVI., the schism of the 
"Little Church" was not extinguished until 1893 by 
the letter of Leo XIII. to the Bishop of Poitiers; and 
to this day there is still a little band of irreconcilables 
in France, although they have no organization. 

^ For the movement inangu- Botta, Storia d'ltalia, dal 1789 
rated in Lombardy and Pied- al 181 5. 
mont by Scipio de Ricei, see 



ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 275 

The new bishops of the Concordat, sixty in number, 
including the ten archbishops, were presented by the 
government and instituted by the Pope; of the entire 
number only fifteen were former Constitutionals. 
Thereupon the whole system, episcopal, diocesan, and 
parochial, was unified and reorganized. At the close of 
service in every church the prayer ascended : ''Domine, 
fac salvam rempublicam ; Domine, salvos fac consules." 
Proper salaries were paid by the state to all ecclesiastics, 
church estates were confirmed to their actual posses- 
sors, and Pius granted to the consuls all the rights of 
sovereigns — to wit, exemption from the jurisdiction 
of the Ordinary, absolution by their own confessors in 
cases otherwise reserved to the Pope, the right of vis- 
iting monasteries, of not being excommunicated with- 
out special papal authorization, and of being canons 
in the Church of St. John Lateran in Rome. The 
temporal power of Pius VII. was recognized, a nuncio 
took up his residence in Paris, and a French ambassa- 
dor in Rome. This was the performance of what the 
lawyers call a synallagmatic contract, going into 
operation by the mutual or reciprocal fulfilment of 
obligations. 

The Concordat was at one and the same time a law 
of the state and of the church. Quite otherwise the 
^'Organic Articles of the Catholic Cult," which were 
voted simultaneously as a purely secular measure and 
were never submitted to Pius VII. Under the pre- 
tence of "police regulation" Napoleon harked back to 
the Gallican Declaration of 1682 as the norm of state 
action, his object being to exclude the Pope com- 
pletely from all direct interference in the affairs of the 
church throughout France, and to centralize ecclesias- 
tical administration in his own hands. This legacy 
of the old monarchy had been utterly discredited by 



2/6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

experience. Under its provisions all acts of the Vat- 
ican and of foreign synods were subject to state veri- 
fication, no council could be held without state author- 
ization, prelates could not even visit Rome without 
state permission, and the right of appeal ab abusu 
to lay courts was asserted. So far we can find noth- 
ing to blame. A foreign power as such should not 
intervene in the affairs of any state except through the 
government; it was likewise well to separate spiritual 
from temporal affairs, to regulate marriage as a civil 
contract, and to charge the administration with keep- 
ing vital statistics. 

But the rest has been justly stigmatized as adminis- 
trative despotism. Liberty of organization, of forms 
in worship, of ecclesiastical dress, of teaching and 
preaching, of all that makes for freedom, was utterly 
cut off. Even the Protestants, whose ecclesiastical 
affairs were regulated by another set of organic ar- 
ticles and who had no religious head, were virtually 
stripped of the right of free choice in unessentials ; as 
Pastor Vincent of Nimes remarked, religion became a 
department of government, a subject of administration. 
The minister of state. Count Portalis, who endeavored 
to justify the Concordat in a famous speech, was ac- 
cused of an effort to turn God himself into a French 
functionary, and this is literally what was attempted 
later under the First Empire. Discipline, doctrine, 
and even dogma were alike placed under state control. 
It was indeed a remarkable series of regulations to 
secure what the Concordat styled "public tranquillity." 
Wherever there was a Protestant church the Catholics 
were forbidden to celebrate their rites without the 
walls of their own churches or to march in procession 
through the streets with ecclesiastical pomp. Pius 
VII. was of course outraged at being so overreached. 



ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 277 

He at once began a series of protests, which continued 
for fifteen years, under the Consulate and the Empire 
with no results, and under the Restoration with almost 
negligible success. 

To the Protestants perfect toleration with state sup- 
port was assured. Both the Calvinists and the Luther- 
ans of France were organized into state churches by 
their own "organic laws," passed simultaneously with 
the others. Their parishes, consistories, and synods 
were formed and regulated under state control, and 
their ofificers began to receive state pay. So, too, a little 
later, the Jews, by the device of a Grand Sanhedrim 
summoned to meet at Paris, were organized into syna- 
gogues and consistories; the rabbis were to be paid a 
sum fixed by the state, but at first these moneys were 
raised by voluntary contributions ; they were not made 
a charge on the public treasury until 1831. All Jews 
were forced to adopt and use family names, perform 
military service, forswear polygamy, and subscribe the 
oath of national allegiance. For other forms of wor- 
ship, Greek, Anglican, and Mussulman being the only 
ones known to have any substantial numbers of adher- 
ents, complete protection was assured under a volun- 
tary system of support. 

With the unavoidable breach between the full-blown 
despot, the Emperor Napoleon, and the Pope we have 
here nothing to do, for it was an historic episode with- 
out historic results of any weight as regards the revolu- 
tionary epoch. For the subsequent epoch it had con- 
siderable importance. The Napoleonic system was by 
its author extended for an appreciable period over both 
Italy and Spain, as well as over the French Empire 
proper. In the Italian Concordat of 1803 it was stipu- 
lated that the Catholic religion should be the state 
religion. This was a bitter disappointment to the 



2/8 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Italian liberals. Yet the results were almost insignifi- 
cant. The affairs of the Roman Church were man- 
aged by shifts and uncanonical expedients throughout 
not only the Catholic but the Protestant lands of west- 
ern and central Europe. The secular authorities med- 
dled at their will, partly because of a general loss of 
respect for the papacy and partly because the Pope was 
in captivity; he was a prisoner, even though his prison 
was the palace of Fontainebleau. 

This situation lasted until 1814, and the conse- 
quences in France itself, but especially elsewhere in 
Europe, were far reaching. Jacobinism had pene- 
trated Germany in the camp equipage of the French 
armies, and altars had been erected to Reason in many 
towns, notably Mentz, Treves, and Cologne.^ When 
the left bank of the Rhine became French the secular 
princes were indemnified, as long before by the Treaty 
of Westphalia, in the vast ecclesiastical estates which 
were permanently secularized and incorporated into 
the modern states of Europe. These were for the 
most part ruled by Protestant princes, or at least by 
such as were ready to break with Rome. Roman Ca- 
tholicism lost everything in the nature of effective secu- 
lar protection throughout the Continent, except in the 
single case of Dalberg, who secured from Napoleon the 
primacy of Germany and retained for a time as an ec- 
clesiastical prince such portions of Mentz, Treves, and 
Cologne as were on the right bank of the Rhine. The 
estates of all chapters, monasteries, and abbeys passed, 
by authorization of the imperial ''deputation" held at 
Ratisbon in 1803, into the hands of the secular author- 
ity, to be used for the support of worship, education, 

^ For an interesting discus- see Venedey : Die Deutschen 
sion of what was done by the Republicaner imter der Fran- 
secret societies of the lUu- zosischen Republik, p. 91, 
minati in preparing the way, 



ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 279 

and the like public interests, or for reestablishing the 
public finances. 

In consequence of these measures there was a wide- 
spread eclipse of faith among Roman Catholics in 
every place, and consequently a decline both in the 
organized Roman Church and in true religion. Sep- 
arate German states, Bavaria in particular, struggled 
to imitate their master and negotiated concordats of 
their own; these papers represented the public temper, 
but they were not law, for they were never signed. 
The same was substantially true of the Roman Church 
both in Italy and in Spain. Monasteries and convents 
were closed, — two thirds at least of the whole number, 
— their estates w^ere confiscated, and the clergy in gen- 
eral was either forced to accept secular control or to 
abdicate its functions. During the whole period the 
secular power assumed in all places ecclesiastical func- 
tions, and the memory of those days survives yet in 
every European capital as affording a possible solution 
of knotty problems at acute crises. The power of the 
papacy has never been the same since the days of the 
first French Empire. 

It is, however, the common experience of mankind 
that measures enacted in principle are constantly nulli- 
fied in administration. The cries of Pius VII. were 
incessant and apparently justified. Himself a prisoner 
in France, French priests were either subservient func- 
tionaries or were reduced to helplessness by persecu- 
tion. Spiritual tyranny was unabated ; for a season the 
most sacred duties of the church were performed within 
the limits of the severest statutory law. Yet, as time 
passed, Bonaparte felt so strong that little by little se- 
verity was relaxed, until a sense of grateful relief began 
to arise among the faithful. In the first year of the 
Concordat only one million dollars were appropriated 



28o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

for the support of the Roman Church; by 1807 the 
sum was increased to eight millions ! More than this, 
in the same interval considerable portions of the eccle- 
siastical estates had been restored to church uses. 
Other things even more strange had likewise occurred. 
The radical members of the National Institute were re- 
duced to inactivity. The Imperial University was in- 
structed to base all education on Catholic principles! 
Napoleon's own hand wrote Catholic where Christian 
had first been suggested. The schools of the Chris- 
tian Brethren were reorganized as an offset to the secu- 
lar primary schools. The rules as to religious pro- 
cessions were relaxed, the republican calendar was 
abolished, and, although without specific authorization, 
certain religious communities were reestablished and 
tolerated. Under the Restoration and subsequently 
the powerful democracy of France was galled by its 
chains, and in its repeated efforts at emancipation un- 
did much of this. But for what survived the papacy 
has expressed gratitude.^ 

In some sense, therefore, French liberals are justi- 
fied in their contention that the Concordat was a reac- 
tionary measure. The religious associations were 
never more powerful morally than now; secular edu- 
cation, both secondary and primary, was never less in- 
fluential ; the absence of sectarianism within the Roman 
Church was never more conspicuous. Yet, on the 
other hand, what is to the French government a stum- 
bling-block is a religious condition quite different 
from the Ultramontanism of the eighteenth century; 
the Roman hierarchy of contemporary France is al- 
most Gallican in the broad sense of that word, and the 

^Theiner's volumes were a maine et le Premier Empire) 
retort to the charge of M. that Catholics owed nothing to 
d'Haussonville (L'Eglise Ro- Napoleon. 



ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 281 

Vatican follows rather than leads the ecclesiastical 
opinion of the country in its attitude toward French 
politics. While, therefore, neither Protestantism nor 
radicalism has proportionately made gains of impor- 
tance one over the other in the number of avowed ad- 
herents, yet within the Roman Church there has been 
a persistent and marked current of true reform due to 
the secular revolution, and its permanent gains in moral 
force may be noted scarcely less within than without 
the fold of Rome. 

Finally, what is to-day a menace to governmental 
authority in France — namely, the extraordinary power 
and wealth of uncontrolled and invading religious 
orders — was unforeseen by the makers of the Con- 
cordat. The monasteries had been annihilated, their re- 
organization seemed impossible. No provision, there- 
fore, was made against a contingency of which no 
one dreamed. But the unexpected came to pass, and 
the new orders which to-day conduct the education 
of the upper classes almost entirely, care for the sick 
very extensively, and print the most widely circulated 
journals of the country, being unknown to France in 
1 80 1, defy all authority except that of Rome. The 
situation, therefore, seems utterly abnormal to both the 
government and its supporters, including the majority 
of those Catholics living under the Concordat. That 
such powers within the state will eventually be placed 
in some measure under state control cannot be doubted. 
Should a new and more comprehensive Concordat be 
substituted for the old, or a supplement to the Articles 
Organiques be enacted into a law controlling the new 
orders, the present ecclesiastical system may take a 
new lease of life. Otherwise France must move on- 
ward to complete disestablishment. 



APPENDIX 



MORSE LECTURESHIP 

Founded by Professor S. F. B. Morse, May 20, 1865, in the sum 
of $10,000. 

"The general subject of the lectures I desire to be the rela- 
tions of the Bible to any of the sciences, as geography, geology, 
history, and ethnology; the vindication of the inspiration and 
authority of the Bible against attacks made on scientific grounds, 
and the relation of the facts and truths contained in the Word 
of God to the principles, methods, or aims of any of the sciences. 

"Upon one or more of these topics a course of ten public lec- 
tures shall be given at least once in two or three years by a lec- 
turer ordinarily to be chosen two years in advance of the time 
for the delivery of the lectures. The appointment of the lecturer 
shall be by the concurrent action of the founder of the lecture- 
ship during his life, the board of directors and the faculty of the 
said seminary. 

"The funds shall be securely invested, and the interest of the 
same shall be devoted to the payment of the lecturer and to the 
publication of the lectures within a year after the delivery of 
the same. 

"The copyright of the lectures shall be vested in the seminary." 



APPENDIX 

The following documents are printed to indicate: I. The possi- 
bilities of true reform. II. The plan actually adopted. III. The 
inconsistencies of the radicals in a pretended religious emanci- 
pation. IV. The final compromise and its defects. 



MALOUET'S PROPOSALS. See p. 92 

13 October, 1789 

Je considere d'abord d'ou proviennent les proprietes appelees 
biens du clerge. Qui est-ce qui a donne, qui est-ce qui a regu, 
qui est-ce qui possede? Je trouve des fondateurs qui instituent, 
des eglises qui regoivent, des ecclesiastiques qui possedent sous 
la protection de la loi. Je trouve que le droit du donateur n'est 
point conteste ; qu'il a stipule les conditions de sa donation avec 
une partie contractant I'engagement de les remplir; que toutes 
ces transactions ont regu le sceau de la loi, et qu'il en resulte 
diverses dotations assignees aux frais du culte, a I'entretien de 
ses ministres, et au soulagement des pauvres. 

Je trouve alors que ces biens sont une propriete nationale, en 
ce qu'ils appartiennent collectivement au culte et aux pauvres de 
la nation. 

Mais chaque beneficier n'en est pas moins possesseur legitime, 
en acquittant les charges et conditions de la fondation. 

Or, la possession, la disposition des revenus, est la seule espece 
de propriete qui puisse appartenir au sacerdoce, c'est la seule qu'il 
ait jamais reclamee. 

Celle qui donne droit a I'alienation, a la transmission du fonds 
par heritage ou autrement, ne saurait lui convenir, en ce qu'elle 
serait destructive des dotations de I'Eglise; et parce qu'elle a des 
proprietes effectives, il fallait bien qu'elles fussent inalienables; 

285 



286 APPENDIX 

pour qu'elles ne devinssent pas excesslves, il fallalt blen en limiter 
retendue; mais comme I'incapacite d'acqnerir n'est pas celle de 
posseder, I'edit de 1749 ne pent infliier sur la solution de la ques- 
tion pi-esente, et j'avoue qu'il me parait extraordinaire qu'on 
emploie contre le clerge Ics titres meme conservateurs de ses pro- 
prietes, ainsi que toutes les raisons, tons les motifs qui en com- 
posent le caractere legal. 

Un des preopinants a dit que les corps etaient aptes a acquerir, 
a conserver des proprietes, mais qu'elles disparaissent avec leur 
existence ; qu'ainsi le clerge, ne formant plus un ordre dans I'Etat, 
ne pouvait etre aujourd'hui considere comme proprietaire. 

Mais il ne s'agit point ici de biens donnes a un corps. Les 
proprietes de I'Eglise sont subdivisces en autant de dotations dis- 
tinctes que ses ministres ont de services a remplir; ainsi, lors 
meme qu'il n'y aurait plus d'assemblee du clerge, tant qu'il y aura 
des paroisses, des eveches, des monasteres, chacun de ces etab- 
lissements a une dotation propre qui pent etre modifiee par la loi, 
mais non detruite autrement qu'en detruisant I'etablissement. 

C'est ici le lieu de remarquer que plusieurs des preopinants 
etablissent des principes contradictoires, en tirant neanmoins les 
memes consequences. Tantot, en considerant le clerge comme 
un etre moral, on a dit : les corps 11 ont aucun droit reel par leur 
nature, puis qu'ils n'ont pas meme de nature propre, ainsi le clerge 
ne saurait etre proprietaire. Tantot on le considere comme dis- 
sous, en qualite de corps, et on dit qu'il ne pent plus posseder 
aujourd'hui de la meme maniere qu'il possedait pendant son 
existence politique, qui lui donnait droit a la propriete. 

Enfin, un troisieme opinant a dit, dans une suite de faits, "que 
le clerge n'a jamais possede comme corps; que chaque fondation 
avait eu pour objet un etablissement et un service particuliers." 
et cette assertion est exacte. Mais je demande si Ton peut en 
conclure qu'il soit juste et utile que cet etablissement, ce service 
et ceux qui le remplissent soient depouilles de leur dotation? Or, 
c'est le veritable et la seule question qu'il faillait presenter, car 
celle de la propriete pour les usufruitiers n'est point proble- 
matique. Le clerge possede, voila le fait. Ses titres sont sous la 
protection, sous la garde et la disposition de la nation; car elle 
dispose de tons les etablissements publics, par le droit qu'elle a 
sur sa propre legislation et sur le culte meme qu'il lui plait 
d'adopter; mais la nation n'exerce par elle-meme ni ses droits 
de propriete, ni ceux de souverainete ; et de meme que ses rep- 
resentants ne pourraient disposer de la couronne qui lui appar- 



APPENDIX 287 

tient. mais seulement regler I'excrcice de ratitorite et dcs pre- 
rogatives royales, de meme aussi ils ne pourraient, sans un man- 
dat special, aneantir le culte public et Ics dotations qui lui sont as- 
signees, mais seulement en regler micux Tcmploi, en reformer los 
abus, et disposer pour les besoins publics de tout ce qui se trouve- 
rait excedant au service des autcls et au soulagemcnt dcs pauvres. 

Ainsi. Messieurs, I'aveu du principe que les biens du clerge sont 
une propriete nationale n'etablit point les consequences qu'on en 
voudrait tirer. Et comme il ne s'agit point ici d'etablir unc vaine 
theorie mais une doctrine pratique sur les biens ecclesiastiqucs, 
c'est sur ce principe meme que je fonde mon opinion et un plan 
d'operations different de celui qui vous est presente. 

Le premier apergu de la motion de M. I'eveque d'Autun m'a 
montre plus d'avantages que d'inconvenients ; j'avoue que dans 
I'embarras oil nous sommes, 1,800,000,000 disponibles au profit 
de I'Etat m'ont seduit ; mais un examen plus reflechi m'a fait voir, 
a cote d'une ressource fort exageree des inconvenients graves, 
des injustices inevitables; et lorsque je me suis rappele le jour 
memorable ou nous adjurames, au nom du Dieu de paix, les 
membres du clerge de s'unir a nous comme nos freres. de se con- 
fier a notre foi. j'ai fremi du sentiment douloureux qu'ils pou- 
vaient eprouver et transmettre a leurs successeurs, en se voyant 
depouilles de leurs biens par un decret auquel ils n'auraient pas 
consenti. 

Que cette consideration. Messieurs, dans les temps orageux oii 
nous sommes, soit aupres de vous de quelque poids. C'est pre- 
cisement parce qu'on entend dire d'un ton menagant : il faut 
prendre les biens du clerge, que nous devons etre plus disposes 
a les defendre, plus circonspects dans nos decisions. Ne souf- 
frons pas qu'on impute quelque jour a la terreur, a la violence, 
des operations qu'une justice exacte peut legitimcr, si nous leur 
en imprimons le caractere, et qui seront plus profitables a I'Etat 
si nous substituons la reforme a I'invasion et les calculs de I'ex- 
perience a des speculations incertaines. 

La nation. Messieurs, en nous donnant scs pouvoirs, nous a 
ordonne de lui conscrver sa religion et son Roi ; il ne dependrait 
pas plus de nous d'abolir le catholicisme en France que le gou- 
vernement monarchique ; mais la nation peut, s'il lui plait, detruire 
I'un et I'autre non par des instructions partielles, mais par un 
vceu unanime, legal, solennel, exprime dans toutes les subdivisions 
territoriales du royaame. Alors les representants, organc de cette 
volonte, peuvent la mettre a execution. 



288 APPENDIX 

Cette volonte generale ne s'est point manifestee sur I'invaslon 
des biens du clerge; devons-nous la supposer, la prevenir? Pou- 
vons-nous resister a une volonte contraire de ne pas ebranler les 
fondements du culte public? pouvons-nous tout ce que peut la 
nation, et plus qu'elle ne pourrait? 

Je m'arrete a cette derniere proposition, parce qu'en y repondant 
je reponds a toutes les autres. 

S'il plaisait a la nation de detruire I'Eglise catholique en France, 
et d'y substituer une autre religion en disposant des biens actuels 
du clerge, la nation, pour etre juste, serait obligee d'avoir egard 
aux intentions expresses des donateurs, comme on respecte en 
toute societe celle du testateur; or ce qui a ete donne a I'Eglise 
est, par indivis et par substitution, donne aux pauvres ; ainsi tant 
qu'il y aura en France des hommes qui ont faim et soif, les biens 
de rfiglise leur sont substitues par I'intention des testateurs, avant 
d'etre reversibles au domaine national; ainsi, la nation, en de- 
truisant meme le clerge, et avant de s'emparer de ses biens pour 
toute autre destination, doit assurer dans tout son territoire, et 
par hypotheque speciale sur ses biens, la subsistance des pauvres. 

Je sais que ce moyen de defense de la part du clerge, tres- 
legitime dans le droit, peut etre attaque dans le fait. Tous les 
possesseurs de benefices ne sont pas egalement charitables, tous 
ne font pas scrupuleusement le part des pauvres. 

Eh bien! Messieurs faisons-la nous-memes. Les pauvres sont 
aussi nos creanciers dans I'ordre moral comme dans I'etat social 
et politique. Le premier germe de corruption, dans un grand 
peuple, c'est la misere: le plus grand ennemi de la liberte, des 
bonnes mceurs, c'est la misere; et le dernier terme de I'avilisse- 
ment, pour un homme libre, apres le crime, c'est la mendicite. 
Detruisons ce fleau qui nous degrade, et qu'a la suite de toutes 
nos dissertations sur les droits de I'homme, une loi de secours 
pour I'homme souffrant soit un des articles religieux de notre 
Constitution. 

Les biens du clerge nous en offrent les moyens en conservant 
la dime, qui ne peut etre abandonnee dans le plan meme de M. 
I'eveque d'Autun, et qui cesserait d'etre odieuse au peuple, lors- 
qu'il y verrait la perspective d'un soulagement certain dans sa 
detresse. 

Je ne developperai point ici le plan de secours pour les pauvres, 
tel que je le congois dans toute son etendue; je remarquerai seule- 
ment qu'en reunissant sous un meme regime, dans chaque pro- 
vince, les aumones volontaires a des fonds assignes sur la percep- 



APPENDIX 289 

tion des dimes, on poiirrait facilement soutenir rindiistric languis- 
sante, prevenir ou soulager I'indigence dans tout le royaume. 

Et quelle operation plus importante, Messieurs, peut solliciter 
notre zele? Cet etablissement de premiere necessite ne manquc- 
t-il pas a la nation? les lois sur les proprietes remontent a la fon- 
dation des empires, et les lois en faveur de ceux qui ne possedent 
rien sont encore a faire. 

Je voudrais done Her la cause des pauvres a celle des creanciers 
de I'Etat, qui auront une hypotheque encore plus assuree sur 
I'aisance generale du peuple frangais que sur les biens-fonds du 
clerge, et je voudrais surtout que les sacrifices a faire par ce 
corps respectable fussent tellement compatibles avec la dignite et 
les droits de I'Eglise, que ses representants pussent y consentir 
librement. 

Ces sacrifices deviennent necessaires pour satisfaire a tous les 
besoins qui nous pressent, et je mets au premier rang de ces 
besoins le secours urgent a donner a la multitude d'hommes qui 
manquent de subsistance. 

Ces sacrifices sont indispensables sous un autre rapport : si la 
severite des reformes ne s'etendait que sur le clerge, ce serait 
un abus de puissance revoltant ; mais lorsque les premieres places 
de I'administration et de I'armee seront reduites a des traitements 
moderes, lorsque les graces non meritees, les emplois inutiles 
seront reformes, le clerge n'a point a se plaindre de subir la loi 
commune, loi salutaire, si nous voulons etre libres. 

Enfin, ces sacrifices sont justes; car au nombre des objections 
presentees contre le clerge, il en est d'une grande importance : 
c'est la compensation de I'impot, dont il s'est affranchi pendant 
nombre d'annees. 

La liberte, Messieurs, est une plante precieuse qui devient un 
arbre robuste sur un sol feconde par le travail et la vertu, mais 
qui languit et perit entre le luxe et la misere. Oui, certes, il faut 
reformer nos moeurs encore plus que nos lois, si nous voulons 
conserver cette grande conquete. 

Mais s'il est possible, s'il est raisonnable de faire des a present 
dans I'emploi des biens ecclesiastiques d'utiles reformes, de de- 
doubler les riches benefices accumules sur une meme tete, de 
supprimer les abbayes a mesure qu'elles vaqueront, de reduire 
le nombre des eveches, des cliapitres, des monasteres, des prieures 
et de tous les benefices simples, I'alienation generale des biens 
du clerge me parait impossible. J'estime qu'elle ne serait ni juste, 
ni utile. 



290 APPENDIX 

Si I'operation est partielle et successive a mesure des extinctions 
ou des reunions, je n'entends pas comment elle remplirait le 
plan de M. I'eveque d'Autun, comment pourraient s'effectuer 
le remplacement de la gabelle, le remboursement des offices de 
judicature, celui des anticipations, des payements arrieres qui exi- 
gent, pour nous mettre au courant, une somme de 400 millions. 
J'estime que toutes les ventes partielles et successives ne pour- 
raient s'operer en moins de trente annees, en ne deplagant pas 
violemment les titulaires et les usufruitiers actuels, et en obser- 
vant de ne pas mettre a la fois en circulation une trop grande 
masse de biens-fonds, ce que en avilirait le prix. 

L'operation sera-t-elle generale et subite? Je n'en congois pas 
les moyens, a moins de congedier a la fois tons les beneficiers, 
tons les religieux actuels, en leur assignant des pensions. Eh ! 
qui pourrait acheter? Comment payer une aussi grande quantite 
de biens-fonds ? On recevra, dit-on, des porteurs de creances sur le 
Roi ; mais on ne fait pas attention qu'aussitot que la dette pub- 
lique sera consolidee, il n'y aura point de capitaux plus recher- 
ches, parce qu'il n'y en aura pas de plus productifs ; ainsi, peu de 
creanciers se presenteront comme adjudicataires. 

Croit-on d'ailleurs que la liquidation des dettes de chaque corps 
ecclesiastique n'entrainera pas des incidents, des oppositions et 
des delais dans les adjudications, et que I'adoption d'un tel plan 
n'occasionnera pas tres-promptement la degradation de ces biens, 
par le decouragement qu'eprouveraient les proprietaires, fermiers, 
exploitants actuels? 

Si dans ce systeme il n'y avait ni difficulte ni injustice, relative- 
ment au clerge, e'en serait une. Messieurs, que de faire dis- 
paraitre le patrimoine des pauvres, avant de I'avoir remplace d'une 
maniere certaine. 

Qu'il me soit permis de rappeler ici toute la rigueur des prin- 
cipes ; pouvons nous aneantir cette substitution solennelle des 
biens de I'Eglise en faveur des pauvres? 

Pouvons-nous, sans etre bien surs du voeu national, supprimer 
generalement tous les monasteres, tous les ordres religieux, meme 
ceux qui se consacrent a I'education de la jeunesse, aux soins des 
malades, et ceux qui par d'utiles travaux ont bien merite de I'Eglise 
et de I'Etat? Pouvons-nous, politiquement et moralement, oter 
tout espoir, tous moyens de retraite a ceux de nos concitoyens 
dont les principes religieux, ou les prejuges ou les malheurs, leur 
font envisager cet asile comme une consolation? 

Pouvons-nous et devons-nous reduire les eveques, les cures, a 



APPENDIX 291 

la qualite de pensionnaires? La dignite eminente des premiers, le 
ministere venerable des pasteurs, n'exigent-ils pas de leur con- 
server, et a tons les ministres des autels, les droits et les signes 
distinctifs de citoyens, an nombre dcsquels est essentiellement la 
propriete ? 

Je crois, Mcssienrs, etre en droit de repondre negativement a 
tontes ces questions. 

1° L'alienation generate des biens du clerge est une des plus 
grandes innovations politiques, et je crois que nous n'avons ni des 
pouvoirs, ni des motifs suffisants pour I'operer. 

On vous a deja represente qu'une guerre malheureuse, une in- 
vasion de I'ennemi, pourrait mettre en peril la subsistance des 
ecclesiastiques, lors qu'elle ne serait plus fondee sur des im- 
meubles, et cette consideration doit etre d'un grand poids, rela- 
tivement a I'Eglise, et relativement aux pauvres que lui sont 
affilies. 

On objecte que I'etat ecclesiastique est une profession qui doit 
etre salariee comme celle de magistrat, de militaire ; mais on 
oublie que ces deux classes de citoyens ont assez generalement 
d'autres moyens de subsistance ; que les soldats reduits a leur paye 
n'en sauraient manquer tant qu'ils sont armes. 

Mais quelle sera la ressource des ministres des autels, si le 
Tresor public est dans I'impuissance de satisfaire a tout autre 
engagement que la solde de I'armee? et combien de chances mal- 
heureuses peuvent momentanement produire de tels embarras ! 

2° En vendant actuellement tous les biens du clerge, la nation 
se prive de la plus-value graduelle qu'ils acquerront par le laps 
de temps, et elle prepare, dans une proportion inverse, I'augmen- 
tation de ses charges, 

3*^ Je doute que I'universalite du peuple frangais approuve I'ane- 
antissement de tous les monasteres sans distinction. La re- 
forme, la suppression des ordres inutiles, des convents trop 
nombreux, est necessaire ; mais peut-etre que chaque province et 
meme chaque ville desirera conserver une ou deux maisons de 
retraite pour I'un et I'autre sexe. 

^ II est impossible que chaque diocese ne conserve au moins un 
seminaire, un chapitre et une maison de repos pour les cures et 
les vicaires qui ne peuvent continuer leur service. 

Si Ton ajoutait a toutes ces considerations celle de I'augmenta- 
tion necessaire des portions congrues, et enfin, s'il vous parait 
juste, comme je le pense, de ne deposseder aucun titulaire, non- 
seulement la vente generale des biens du clerge devient actuelle- 



292 APPENDIX 

ment impossible, mais meme dans aucun temps il ne serait profi- 
table d'en aliener au dela d'une somme determinee, que j'estime 
eventuellement au cinquieme ou au quart; et le remplacement de 
cette alienation doit etre rigoureusement fait au profit des pauvres 
dans des temps plus heureux ; car selon tous les principes de la 
justice, de la morale et du droit positif, les biens du clerge ne 
sont disponibles que pour le culte public ou pour les pauvres. 

Si ces observations sont, comme je le crois, demontrees, il en 
resulte : 

1° Que, quoique les biens du clerge soient une propriete na- 
tionale, le Corps legislatif ne pent, sans un mandat special, con- 
vertir en pensionnaire de I'Etat une classe de citoyens que la 
volonte interieure et speciale de la nation a rendus possesseurs de 
biens-fonds, a des charges et conditions determinees. 

2" Que I'emploi de ces biens peut etre regie par le Corps legis- 
latif, de telle maniere qu'ils remplissent le mieux possible leur 
destination, qui est le culte public, I'entretien honorable de ses 
ministres et le soulagement des pauvres. 

3" Que si, par la meilleure distribution de ces biens et par une 
organisation mieux entendue du corps ecclesiastique, les ministres 
de I'Eglise peuvent etre entretenus et les pauvres secourus, de 
maniere qu'il y ait un excedant, le Corps legislatif peut en disposer 
pour les besoins pressants de I'Etat. 

Maintenant, Messieurs, la transition de ces resultats a une ope- 
ration definitive sur les biens du clerge est necessairement un 
examen reflechi des etablissements ecclesiastiques actuellement 
subsistants, de ce qu'il est indispensable d'en conserver, de ce 
qu'il est utile de reformer. 

II faut ensuite fixer les depenses du culte et de I'entretien des 
ministres, proportionellement a leur dignite, a leur service, et 
relativement encore a I'intention qu'ont eue les fondateurs des 
divers benefices. Cette fixation determinee doit etre comparee 
aux biens effectifs du clerge, leur produit en terres, rentes, mai- 
sons, et a leurs charges d'apres des etats authentiques. 

Alors, Messieurs, apres un travail exact et un classement cer- 
tain des rentes et des depenses, des individus, des etablissements 
conserves, apres avoir assigne dans de justes proportions, ce qu'il 
est convenable d'accorder aux grandes dignites et aux moindres 
ministeres de I'Eglise, ce qui doit etre reserve dans chaque canton 
pour I'assistance des pauvres ; alors seulement vous connaitrez 
tout ce que vous pouvez destiner aux besoins de I'Etat; mais ils 
sont actuellement si pressants, que j'ai cru pouvoir, par des opera- 



APPENDIX 293 

tions provisoires, determiner une somme de secours, soit pour les 
pauvres, soit pour les depenses publiques. 

En estimant a 160 millions, y compris les dimes, le revenu du 
clerge, je pense que les reformes, suppressions et reductions pos- 
sibles permettent de prelever une somme annuelle de 30 millions 
pour les pauvres, et une alienation successive de 400 millions 
d'immeubles, qui serait, des ce moment-ci, le gage d'une somme 
pareille de credit ou d'assignation. 

Cette ressource etant estimee suffisante, d'apres le rapport du 
comite des finances, pour eteindre toutes les anticipations et ar- 
rerages de payement, et la balance etant ainsi retablie avec avan- 
tage entre la recette et la depense, la vente des domaines libres 
et la surtaxe en plus-value de ceux engages faciliteraient tous les 
plans d'amelioration dans le regime des impots, et suffiraient en 
partie au remboursement des offices de judicature. 

Je resumerai done dans les articles suivants les dispositions que 
je crois actuellement praticables relativement aux biens du clerge. 

J'observe que je n'entre dans aucun des details qui doivent etre 
I'objet du travail de la commission ecclesiastique, tels que I'aug- 
mentation indispensable des portions congrues ; mais on concevra 
qu'elle ne peut s'effectuer actuellement que par des reductions sur 
les jouissances des grands beneficiers. 

La maniere d'operer ces reductions ne doit point etre arbitraire 
ni violente ; il me semble que, sans deposseder aucuns titulaires, on 
peut etablir des fixations precises de revenus sur toutes les classes 
du ministere ecclesiastique, et tout ce qui excederait cette fixation 
sera paye en contributions, soit pour le Tresor public, soit pour 
toute autre destination. 



Articles Proposes 

Art. I". Les biens du clerge sont une propriete nationale dont 
I'emploi sera regie conformement a sa destination, qui est le 
service des autels, I'entretien des ministres et le soulagement des 
pauvres. 

Art. 2. Ces objets remplis, Texcedant sera consacre aux besoins 
de I'Etat, a la decharge de la classe la moins aisee des citoyens. 

Art. 3. Pour connaitre I'excedant des biens du clerge disponible 
et applicable aux besoins publics, il sera forme une commission 
ecclesiastique, a I'effet de determiner le nombre d'eveches, cures, 
chapitres, seminaires et monasteres qui doivent etre conserves, 



294 APPENDIX 

et pour regler 1?. quantlte de biens-fonds, maisons et revenus qui 
doivent etre assignes a chacun de ces etablissements. 

Art. 4. Tout ce qui ne sera pas juge utile au service divin et a 
I'instruction des peuples sera supprime, et les biens-fonds, rentes, 
mobiliers et immeubles desdits etablissements seront remis a I'ad- 
ministration des provinces dans lesquelles ils sont situes. 

Art. 5. En attendant I'effet des dispositions precedantes, et pour 
y concourir, il sera sursis a la nomination de toutes les abbayes, 
canonicats et benefices simples, dependant des collateurs particu- 
liers, jusqu'a ce que le nombre des chapitres et celui des pre- 
bendes a conserver soit determine. 

Art. 6. II est aussi defendu a tous les ordres religieux des deux 
sexes de recevoir des novices, jusqu'a ce que chaque proyince ait 
fait connaitre le nombre de monasteres qu'elle desire conserver. 

Art. 7. La conventualite de chaque monastere de I'un et I'autre 
sexe sera fixee a douze profes, et il sera procede a la reunion de 
toutes les maisons d'un meme ordre, qui n'auront pas le nombre 
de profes prescrit par le present article; les maisons ainsi va- 
cantes par reunion seront remises a I'administration des pro- 
vinces. 

Art. 8. Tous les batiments et terrains, autres que ceux d'habi- 
tation, non compris dans les biens ruraux des eglises, monasteres, 
hopitaux et benefices quelconques seront, des a present, vendus 
par les administrations provinciales, et il sera tenu compte de 
leur produit, a raison de s%, a ceux desdits etablissements qui 
seront conserves: le prix des immeubles ainsi vendus sera con- 
serve dans la caisse nationale; et lors de I'extinction des rentes 
consenties pour raison desdites alienations, la somme en sera em- 
ployee a la decharge des contribuables de la meme province qui 
auront moins de 100 ecus de rente. 

Art. 9. Aucun autre bien vacant par I'effet des dispositions 
ci-dessus ne pourra etre mis en vente jusqu'a ce qu'il ait ete 
pourvu dans chaque province a la dotation suffisante de tous les 
etablissements ecclesiastiques, a I'augmentation des portions con- 
grues, et a la fondation, dans chaque ville et bourg, d'une caisse 
de charite pour le soulagement des pauvres. 

Art. 10. Aussitot qu'il aura ete pourvu a toutes les dotations 
et fondations enoncees ci-dessus, les dimes dont jouissent les 
differents beneficiers cesseront de leur etre payees, et continueront 
jusqu'a nouvel ordre a etre pergues par les administrations pro- 
vinciales, et municipales en deduction des charges imposees aux 
classes les moins aisees de citoyens, 



APPENDIX 295 

Art. II. II sera preleve sur le produit des dimes ct des biens du 
clerge reunis aux administrations provinciales une somme an- 
niielle de 26 millions pour faire face aux interets de la dette an- 
cienne du clerge, et d'un nouveau credit de 400 millions, lequel 
sera ouvert incessamment, avec hypotheque speciale sur la totalite 
des biens ecclesiastiques. 



II 

CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY. See p. 126 

12 July, 1790 

L'AsSEMBLEE nationale, apres avoir entendu le rapport de son 
Comite ecclesiastique, a decrete et decrete ce qui suit, comma ar- 
ticles constitutionnels: 

TITRE PREMIER 

Des oMces ecclesiastiques 

Article Premier. Chaque departement formera un seul diocese, 
qui aura la meme etendue et les memes limites que le departe- 
ment. 

Art. 2. Les sieges des eveches des quatre-vingt-trois departe- 
ments du royaume seront fixes, a savoir: (Here follows a list of 
the towns in which the bishops have their residences.) 

Tous les autres eveches existant dans les quatre-vingt-trois 
departements du royaume, et qui ne sont pas nommement compris 
au present article, sont et demeurent supprimes. 

Art. 3. Le royaume sera divise en dix arrondissements metro- 
politains, dont les sieges seront: Rouen, Reims, Besangon, Rennes, 
Paris, Bourges, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Aix et Lyon. 

Ces metropoles auront la denomination suivante: 

Celle de Rouen sera appelee. metropole des cotes de la Manche 

Celle de Reims metropole du Nord-Est 

Celle de Besangon metropole de I'Est 

Celle de Rennes metropole du Nord-Oucst 

Celle de Paris metropole de Paris 

Celle de Bourges metropole du Centre 



296 APPENDIX 

Celle de Bordeaux metropole du Sud-Ouest 

Celle de Toulouse metropole du Sud 

Celle d'Aix metropole des cotes de la Medi- 

terranee 
Celle de Lyon metropole du Sud-Est 

Art. 4. L'arrondissement de la metropole des cotes de la 
Manche comprendra les eveches des departements de la Seine- 
Inferieure, du Calvados, de la Manche, de I'Orne, de I'Eure, de 
rOise, de la Somme, du Pas-de-Calais. 

L'arrondissement de la metropole du Nord-Est comprendra les 
eveches des departements de la Marne, de la Meuse, de la 
Meurthe, de la Moselle, des Ardennes, de I'Aisne, du Nord. 

L'arrondissement de la metropole de I'Est comprendra les 
eveches des departements du Doubs, du Haut-Rhin, du Bas- 
Rhin, des Vosges, de la Haute-Saone, de la Haute-Marne, de la 
Cote-d'Or, du Jura. 

L'arrondissement de la metropole du Nord-Ouest comprendra 
les eveches des departements de I'llle-et-Vilaine, des C6tes-du- 
Nord, du Finistere, du Morbihan, de la Loire-Inferieure, de 
Mayenne-et-Loire, de la "Sarthe, de la Mayenne. 

L'arrondissement de la metropole de Paris comprendra les 
eveches de Paris, de Seine-et-Oise, d'Eure-et-Loir, du Loiret, de 
I'Yonne, de I'Aube, de Seine-et-Marne. 

L'arrondissement de la metropole du Centre comprendra les 
eveches du departement du Cher, de Loir-et-Cher, de I'lndre-et- 
Loire, de la Vienne, de I'lndre, de la Creuse, de I'Allier, de la 
Nievre. 

L'arrondissement de la metropole du Sud-Ouest comprendra 
les eveches des departements de la Gironde, de la Vendee, de 
la Charente-Inferieure, des Landes, du Lot-et-Garonne, de la 
Dordogne, de la Correze, de la Haute- Vienne, de la Charente et 
des Deux-Sevres. 

L'arrondissement de la metropole du Sud comprendra les 
e-C^eches des departements de la Haute-Garonne, du Gers, des 
Basses-Pyrenees, des Hautes-Pyrenees, de I'Ariege, des Pyrenees- 
Orientales, de I'Aude, de I'Aveyron, du Lot, du Tarn, 

L'arrondissement de la metropole des cotes de la Mediterranee 
comprendra les eveches des departements des Bouches-du-Rhone, 
de la Corse, du Var, des Basses-Alpes, des Hautes-Alpes, de la 
Drome, de la Lozere, du Gard et de I'Herault. 

L'arrondissement de la metropole du Sud-Est comprendra les 



APPENDIX 297 

eveches des departements de Rhone-et-Loire, du Puy-de-D6mc, 
du Cantal, de la Haute-Loire, de I'Ardeche, de I'lsere, de I'Ain, 
de Saone-et-Loire. 

Art. 5. II est defendu a toute eglise ou paroisse de France et 
a tout citoyen frangais, de reconnaitre en aucun cas, et sous 
quelque pretexte que ce soit, I'autorite d'un eveque, ordinaire ou 
metropolitain, dont le siege serait etabli sous la domination d'une 
puissance etrangere, ni celle de ses delegues residant en France 
ou ailleurs: le tout sans prejudice de I'unite de foi et de la com- 
munion qui sera entretenue avec le chef visible de I'figlise uni- 
verselle, ainsi qu'il sera dit ci-apres. 

Art, 6. Lorsque I'eveque diocesain aura prononce dans son 
synode sur des matieres de sa competence, il y aura lieu au re- 
cours au metropolitain, lequel prononcera dans le synode metro- 
politain. 

Art. 7. II sera procede incessamment, et sur I'avis de I'eveque 
et de I'administration des districts, a une nouvelle formation et 
circonscription de toutes les paroisses du royaume. Le nombre 
et I'etendue en seront determines d'apres les regies qui vont 
etre etablies. 

Art. 8. L'eglise cathedrale de chaque diocese sera ramenee a 
son etat primitif d'etre en meme temps eglise paroissiale et eglise 
episcopale, par la suppression des paroisses et le demembrement 
des habitations qu'il sera juge convenable d'y reunir. 

Art. 9. La paroisse episcopale n'aura pas d'autre pasteur im- 
mediat que I'eveque ; tous les pretres qui y seront etablis seront 
ses vicaires et en feront les fonctions. 

Art. id. II y aura seize vicaires de l'eglise cathedrale dans les 
villes qui comprendront plus de 10,000 ames, et douze seulement 
dans celles 011 la population sera au-dessous de 10,000 ames. 

Art. II. II sera conserve ou etabli dans chaque diocese un seul 
seminaire pour la preparation aux ordres, sans entendre rien 
prejuger, quant a present, sur les autres maisons d'instruction et 
d'education. 

Art. 12. Le seminaire sera etabli, autant que faire se pourra, 
pres de l'eglise cathedrale et meme dans I'enceinte des batiments 
destines a I'habitation de I'eveque. 

Art. 13. Pour la conduite et I'instruction des jeunes eleves 
regus dans le seminaire, il y aura un vicaire superieur et trois 
vicaires directeurs subordonnes a I'eveque. 

Art. 14. Les vicaires superieurs et vicaires directeurs seront 
tenus d'assister avec les jeunes eleves ecclesiastiques du seminaire 



298 APPENDIX 

a tous les offices de la paroisse cathedrale et d'y faire toutes les 
fonctions dont I'eveque et son vicaire jugeront a propos de les 
charger. 

Art. 15. Les vicaires des eglises cathedrales, les vicaires supe- 
rieurs et vicaires directeurs du seminaire formeront ensemble le 
conseil habituel et permanent de I'eveque, qui ne pourra faire 
aucun acte de juridiction, en ce qui concerne le gouvernement 
du diocese et du seminaire, qu'apres en avoir delibere avec eux. 
Pourra neanmoins I'eveque, dans le cours de ses visites, rendre 
seul telles ordonnances provisoires qu'il appartiendra. 

Art. 16. Dans toutes les villes et bourgs qui ne comprendront 
pas plus de 6000 ames, il n'y aura qu'une seule paroisse ; les autres 
paroisses seront supprimees et reunies a I'eglise principale. 

Art. 17. Dans les villes ou il y aura plus de 6000 ames, chaque 
paroisse pourra comprendre un plus grand nombre de paroissiens, 
et il en sera conserve autant que les besoins des peuples et des 
localites le demanderont. 

Art. 18. Les assemblies administratives, de concert avec 
I'eveque diocesain, designeront a la prochaine legislature les 
paroisses, annexes ou succursales des villes ou des campagnes 
qu'il conviendra de res'erver ou d'etendre, d'etablir ou de sup- 
primer, et ils en indiqueront les arrondissements, d'apres ce que 
demanderont les besoins des peuples, la dignite du culte et les 
differentes localites. 

Art. 19. Les assemblees legislatives et I'eveque diocesain pour- 
ront meme, apres avoir arrete entre eux la suppression et reunion 
d'une paroisse, convenir que, dans les lieux ecartes, ou qui, pen- 
dant une partie de I'annee, ne communiqueraient que difficile- 
ment avec I'eglise paroissiale, il sera etabli ou conserve une cha- 
pelle, ou le cure enverra les jours de fetes et dimanches un vicaire 
pour y dire la messe et faire au peuple les instructions necessaires. 

La reunion qui pourra se faire d'une paroisse a une autre 
emportera toujours la reunion des biens de la fabrique de I'eglise 
supprimee a la fabrique de I'eglise ou se fera la reunion. 

Art. 20. Tous titres et offices, autres que ceux mentionnes en 
la presente constitution, les dignites, canonicats, prebendes, demi- 
prebendes, chapelles, chapellenies, tant des eglises cathedrales que 
des eglise collegiales, et tous chapitres, reguliers et seculiers, de 
Fun et I'autre sexe, les abbayes et prieures en regie ou en com- 
mende, aussi de I'un et I'autre sexe, et tous autres benefices et 
prestimonies generalement quelconques, de quelque nature et sous 
quelque denomination que ce soit, sont, a compter du jour de la 



APPENDIX 299 

publication du present decret, eteints et supprimcs, sans qu'il 
puisse jamais en etre etablis de semblables. 

Art. 21. Tons les benefices en patronage laiqne sont soumis a 
toutes les dispositions des decrets concernant les benefices dc 
pleine collation ou de patronage ecclesiastique. 

Art. 12. Sont pareillement compris anxdites dispositions tous 
titres et fondations de pleine collation laicale. excepte les chapelles 
actuellement desservies dans I'enceinte des maisons particulicres 
par un chapelain ou desservant, a la seule disposition du pro- 
prietaire. 

Art. 2^. Le contenu dans les articles precedents aura lieu, non- 
obstant toutes clauses, meme de reversion, apposees dans les actes 
de fondation. 

Art. 24. Les fondations de messes et autres services acquittes 
presentement dans les eglises paroissiales par les cures et par les 
pretres qui y sont attaches, sans etre pourvus de leurs places en 
titre perpetuel de benefices, continueront provisoirement a etre 
acquittes et payes comme par le passe, sans neanmoins que, dans 
les eglises ou il est etabli des societes de pretres non pourvus du 
titre perpetuel de benefices et connus sous les divers noms de 
filleuls, agreges, familiers, communalistes, mipartistes, chape- 
lains ou autres, ceux d'entre eux qui viendront a mourir ou a se 
retirer puissent etre remplaces. 

Art. 25. Les fondations faites pour subvenir a I'education des 
parents des fondateurs continueront d'etre executees, conforme- 
ment aux dispositions ecrites dans les titres et fondations, et, a 
regard des autres fondations pieuses, les parties interessees pre- 
senteront leurs memoires aux assemblees de departement, pour, 
sur leur avis et celui de I'eveque diocesain, etre statue par le 
corps legislatif sur leur conservation ou leur remplacement. 



TITRE II 

Nomination aux offices ecclesiastiques 

Article Premier. A compter du jour de la publication du pre- 
sent decret, on ne connaitra qu'une seule maniere de pourvoir aux 
eveches et aux cures, c'est a savoir la forme des elections. 

Art. 2. Toutes les elections se feront par la voie du scrutin et 
a la pluralite absolue des suffrages. 

Art. 3. L'election des eveques sc fera dans la forme prcscrite 



300 APPENDIX 

et par le corps electorale indique dans le decret du 22 decembre 
1789, pour la nomination des membres de I'assemblee du De- 
partement. 

Art. 4. Sur la premiere nouvelle que le procureur general 
syndic du departement recevra de la vacance du siege episcopal, 
par mort, demission ou autrement, il en donnera avis aux procu- 
reurs syndics des districts, a I'effet par eux de convoquer les elec- 
teurs qui auront procede a la derniere nomination des membres 
de I'Assemblee administrative, et, en meme temps, il indiquera le 
jour ou se devra fairs I'election de I'eveque, lequel sera, au plus 
tard, le troisieme dimanche apres la lettre d'avis qu'il ecrira. 

Art. 5. Si la vacance du siege episcopal arrivait dans les quatre 
derniers mois de I'annee oil doit se faire I'election des membres 
de Tadministration de departement, I'election de I'eveque serait 
differe et renvoye a la prochaine assemblee des electeurs. 

Art. 6. L'election de I'eveque ne pourra se faire ou etre com- 
mencee qu'un jour de dimanche, dans I'eglise principale du chef- 
lieu du departement, a Tissue de la messe paroissiale a laquelle 
seront tenus d'assister tous les electeurs. 

Art. 7. Pour etre eligible a un eveche, il sera necessaire d'avoir 
rempli, au moin pendant quinze ans, les fonctions du ministere 
ecclesiastique dans le diocese en qualite de cure, de desservant 
ou de vicaire, ou comme vicaire superieur, ou comme vicaire 
directeur du seminaire. 

Art. 8. Les eveques dont les sieges sont supprimes par le pre- 
sent decret pourront etre elus aux eveches actuellement vacants, 
ainsi qu'a ceux qui vaqueront par la suite, ou qui sont eriges en 
quelques departements, encore qu'ils n'eussent pas quinze annees 
d'exercice. 

Art. 9. Les cures et autres ecclesiastiques qui, par I'effet de la 
nouvelle circonscription des dioceses, se trouveront dans un dio- 
cese different de celui oti ils exergaient leurs fonctions, seront 
reputes les avoir exercees dans leur nouveau diocese, et ils y 
seront en consequence eligibles, pourvu qu'ils aient d'ailleurs le 
temps d'exercice ci-devant exige. 

Art. 10. Pourront aussi etre elus, les cures actuels qui auraient 
dix annees d'exercice dans une cure du diocese, encore qu'ils 
n'eussent pas auparavant rempli les fonctions de vicaire. 

Art. II. II en sera de meme des cures dont les paroisses 
auraient ete supprimees, en vertu du present decret; et il leur 
sera compte, comme temps d'exercice, celui qui se sera ecoule 
depuis la suppression de leur cure. 



APPENDIX 301 

Art. 12. Les misslonnaires. les vicaires generaiix des eveques, 
les ecclesiastiques desservant les hopitaux, 011 charges de I'educa- 
tion publique, seront pareillement eligibles, lorsqu'ils auront rem- 
pli leurs fonctions pendant quinze ans a compter de leur promo- 
tion au sacerdoce. 

Art. 13. Seront pareillement eligibles, les dignitaires. chanoines. 
et en general tons beneficiers et titulaires qui etaient obliges a 
residence, ou exergaient dcs fonctions ecclesiastiques. et dont les 
benefices, titres, offices ou emplois se trouvent supprimes par le 
present decret, lorsqu'ils auront quinze annees d'exercice comp- 
tees, comme il est dit dcs cures dans I'article 11, 

Art. 14. La proclamation de I'elu se fera par le president de 
I'assemblee electorale dans I'eglise ou I'election aura ete faite, en 
presence du peuple et du clerge et avant de commencer la messe 
solennelle qui sera celebree a cet effet. 

Art. 15. Le proces-verbal de I'election et de la proclamation 
sera envoye au roi par le president de I'assemblee des electeurs, 
pour donner a Sa Majeste connaissance du choix qui aura ete fait. 

Art. 16. Au plus tard dans le mois qui suivra son election, 
celui qui aura ete elu a un eveche se presentera en personne a 
son eveque metropolitain, et s'il est elu pour le siege de la metro- 
pole, au plus ancien eveque de I'arrondissement, avec le proces- 
verbal d'election, et il le suppliera de lui accorder la confirma- 
tion canonique. 

Art. 17. Le metropolitain ou I'ancien eveque aura la faculte 
d'examiner I'elu en presence de son conseil, sur sa doctrine et 
ses mceurs; s'il le juge capable, il lui donnera I'institution cano- 
nique ; s'il croit devoir la lui refuser, les causes du refus seront 
donnees par ecrit, signees du metropolitain et de son conseil. 
sauf aux parties interessees a se pourvoir par voie d'appel comme 
d'abus, ainsi qu'il sera dit ci-apres. 

Art. 18. L'eveque, a qui la confirmation sera demandee, ne 
pourra exiger de I'elu d'autre serment, sinon qu'il fait profession 
de la religion catholique, apostolique et romaine. 

Art. 19. Le nouvel eveque ne pourra s'adresser au pape pour 
en obtenir aucune confirmation, mais il lui ecrira comme au chef 
visible de I'Eglisc universelle, en temoignage de I'unite de foi et 
de la communion qu'il doit entretenir avec lui. 

Art. 20. La consecration de l'eveque ne pourra se faire que 
dans son eglise cathedrale, par son metropolitain, ou, a son de- 
faut, par le plus ancien eveque de I'arrondissement de la metro- 
pole assiste des eveques des deux dioceses les plus voisins. un 



302 APPENDIX 

jour de dimanche, pendant la messe parolssiale, en presence du 
peuple et du clerge. 

Art. 21. Avant que la ceremonie de la consecration commence, 
I'elu pretera, en presence des officiers municipaux, du peuple et 
du clerge, le serment solennel de veiller avec soin sur les fideles 
du diocese qui lui est confie, d'etre fidele a la nation, a la loi et 
au roi, et de maintenir de tout son pouvoir la Constitution de- 
crete par TAssemblee nationale et sanctionnee par le roi. 

Art. 22, L'eveque aura la liberte de choisir les vicaires de son 
eglise cathedrale dans tout le clerge de son diocese, a la charge 
par lui de ne pouvoir nommer que des pretres qui auront exerce 
des fonctions ecclesiastiques au moins pendant dix ans ; il ne 
pourra les destituer que de I'avis de son conseil, et par une de- 
liberation qui y aura ete prise a la pluralite des voix en con- 
naissance de cause. 

Art. 23. Les cures actuellement etablis en aucune eglise cathe- 
drale, ainsi que ceux des paroisses qui seront supprimees, pour 
etre reunies a Teglise cathedrale et en former le territoire, seront 
de plein droit, s'ils le demandent, les premiers vicaires de Teveque, 
chacun suivant I'ordre .de leur anciennete dans les fonctions 
pastorales. 

Art. 24. Les vicaires superieurs et vicaires directeurs de semi- 
naire seront nommes par l'eveque et son conseil, et ne pourront 
etre destitues que de la meme maniere que les vicaires de I'eglise 
cathedrale. 

Art. 25. L'election des cures se fera dans la forme prescrite 
et par les electeurs indiques dans le decret du 22 decembre 1789 
pour la nomination des membres de I'assemblee administrative du 
district. 

Art. 26. L'assemblee des electeurs pour la nomination aux cures 
se formera tous les ans a I'epoque de la formation des assemblees 
de district, quand meme il y aurait une seule cure vacante dans 
le district, a I'effet de quoi les municipalites seront tenues de 
donner avis au procureur syndic du district de toutes les vacances 
de cures qui arriveront dans leur arrondissement par mort, de- 
mission ou autrement. 

Art. 27. En convoquant l'assemblee des electeurs, le procureur 
syndic enverra a chaque municipalite la liste de toutes les cures 
auxquelles il faudra nommer. 

Art. 28. L'election des cures se fera par scrutins separes pour 
chaque cure vacante. 

Art. 29. Chaque electeur, avant de mettre son bulletin dans le 



APPENDIX 303 

vase du scrtitin, fera sermcnt de ne nommcr que celiii qu'il aura 
choisi en son ame et conscience, comme Ic plus digne, sans y 
avoir ete determine par dons, promesses, sollicitations ou me- 
naces. Ce serment sera prete pour I'election des eveques comme 
pour celle des cures. 

Art. 30. L'election des cures ne pourra se faire ou etre com- 
mencee qu'un jour de dimanche, dans la principale eglise du 
chef-lieu du district, a Tissue de la messe paroissiale, a laquelle 
tons les electeurs seront tenus d'assister. 

Art. 31. La proclamation des elus sera faite par le president 
du corps electoral dans I'eglise principale, avant la messe solen- 
nelle qui sera celebree a cet effet, et en presence du peuple et du 
clerge. 

Art. 32. Pour etre eligible a une cure, il sera necessaire d'avoir 
rempli les fonctions de vicaire dans une paroisse, ou dans un 
hopital et autre maison de charite du diocese, au moins pendant 
cinq ans. 

Art. 3S. Les cures dont les paroisses seront supprimees en exe- 
cution du present decret pourront etre elus. encore qu'ils n'eus- 
sent pas cinq annees d'exercice dans le diocese. 

Art. 34. Seront pareillement eligibles aux cures, tons ceux qui 
ont ete ci-dessus declares eligibles aux eveches, pourvu qu'ils 
aient aussi cinq annees d'exercice. 

Art. 35. Celui qui aura ete proclame elu a une cure se pre- 
sentera en personne a I'eveque avec le proces-verbal de son elec- 
tion et proclamation, a I'effet d'obtenir de lui I'institution cano- 
nique. 

Art. 36. L'eveque aura la faculte d'examiner I'elu en presence 
de son conseil sur sa doctrine et ses mcEurs ; s'il le juge capable, 
il lui donnera I'institution canonique ; s'il croit devoir la lui re- 
fuser, les causes du refus seront donnees, par ecrit, signees de 
l'eveque et de son conseil, sauf aux parties le recours a la puis- 
sance civile, ainsi qu'il sera dit ci-apres. 

Art. s7. En examinant I'elu qui lui demandera I'institution 
canonique, l'eveque ne pourra exiger de lui d'autre serment, sinon 
qu'il fait profession de la religion catholique, apostolique et 
romaine. 

Art. 38. Les cures, elus et institues, preteront le meme ser- 
ment que les eveques dans leur eglise un jour de dimanche, avant 
la messe paroissiale, en presence des officiers municipaux du lieu, 
du peuple et du clerge; j usque-la, ils ne pourront faire aucune 
fonction curiale. 



304 APPENDIX 

Art. 39. II y aura, tant dans I'eglise cathedrale que dans chaque 
eglise paroissiale, un registre particulier sur lequel le secretaire- 
grefifier de la municipalite du lieu ecrira, sans frais, le proces- 
verbal de la prestation de serment de I'eveque ou du cure ; il n'y 
aura pas d'autre acte de prise de possession que ce proces-verbal. 

Art. 40. Les eveches et les cures seront reputes vacants jus- 
qu'a ce que les elus aient prete le serment ci-dessus mentionne. 

Art. 41. Pendant les vacances du siege episcopal, le premier, 
et, a son defaut, le second vicaire de I'eglise cathedrale, rem- 
placera I'eveque, tant pour les fonctions curiales que pour les 
actes de juridiction qui n'exigent pas le caractere episcopal; 
mais, en tout, il sera tenu de se conduire par les avis du conseil. 

Art, 42. Pendant les vacances d'une cure, I'administration de 
la paroisse sera confiee au premier vicaire, sauf a y etablir un 
vicaire de plus, si la municipalite le requiert ; et dans le cas oil 
il n'y aurait pas de vicaire dans la paroisse, il y sera etabli un 
desservant par I'eveque. 

Art. 43. Chaque cure aura le droit de choisir ses vicaires ; mais 
il ne pourra fixer son choix que sur les pretres ordonnes et admis 
dans la diocese de I'eveque. 

Art. 44. Aucun cure ne pourra revoquer ses vicaires que pour 
les causes legitimes jugees telles par I'eveque et son conseil. 



TITRE III 
Du traitement des ministres de la religion 

Article Premier, Les ministres de la religion exergant les pre- 
mieres et les plus importantes fonctions de la societe, et obliges 
de resider continuellement dans le lieu du service auquel la con- 
fiance des peuples les a appeles, seront defrayes par la nation. 

Art. 2. II sera fourni, a chaque eveque, a chaque cure et aux 
desservants des annexes et succursales, un logement convenable, 
a la charge par eux d'y faire toutes les reparations locatives, sans 
entendre rien innover, quant a present, a I'egard des paroisses et 
par les cures. II leur sera, en outre, assigne a tous le traitement 
qui va etre regie. 

Art. 3. Le traitement des eveques sera, savoir: 

Pour I'eveque de Paris, de 50,000 livres; 

Pour les eveques des villes dont la population est de 50,000 
ames et au-dessus, de 20,000 livres; 



APPENDIX 305 

Pour tons les autres eveques, de 12,000 Hvres. 

Art. 4. Le traitement des eglises cathedrales sera, savoir: 

A Paris, pour le premier vicaire, de 6000 livres; 

Pour le second, de 4000 livres ; 

Pour les autres vicaires, de 3000 livres. 

Dans les villes dont la population est de 50,000 ames et au- 
dessus : 

Pour le premier vicaire, de 4000 livres ; 

Pour le second, de 3000 livres ; 

Pour touts les autres, de 2400 livres. 

Dans les villes dont la population est de moins de 50,000 ames : 

Pour le premier vicaire, de 3000 livres ; 

Pour le second, de 2400 livres ; 

Pour touts les autres, de 2000 livres. 

Art. 5. Le traitement des cures sera, savoir : 

A Paris, de 6000 livres ; 

Dans les villes dont la population est de 50,000 ames et au- 
dessus, de 4000 livres ; 

Dans celles ou la population est de moins de 50,000 ames et de 
plus de 10,000 ames, de 3000 livres ; 

Dans les villes, dans les bourgs dont la population est au- 
dessous de 10,000 ames et au-dessus de 3000 ames, de 2400 livres ; 

Dans tous les autres villes et bourgs, et dans les villages, lors- 
que la paroisse offrira une population de 3000 ames et au-dessous 
jusqu'a 2500, de 2000 livres; lorsqu'elle en offrira une de 2500 
ames jusqu'a 2000, de 1800 livres; lorsqu'elle en offrira une de 
moins de 2000 et de plus de 1000, de 1500 livres, et lorsqu'elle en 
offrira une de 1000 ames et au-dessous, de 1200 livres. 

Art. 6. Le traitement des vicaires sera, savoir : a Paris, pour le 
premier vicaire, de 2400 livres; pour le second, de 1500 livres, 
et, pour tous les autres, de 800 livres. 

Dans les villes ou la population est de 50,000 ames et au-dessus, 
pour le premier vicaire, de 1200 livres; pour le second, de 1000 
livres, et pour tous les autres, de 800 livres. 

Dans tous les autres villes et bourgs, ou la population sera de 
plus de 3000 ames, de 800 livres pour les deux premiers vicaires, 
de 700 livres pour tous les autres. 

Dans toutes les autres paroisses de ville et de campagne, de 700 
livres pour chaque vicaire. 

Art. 7. Le traitement en argent des ministres de la religion 
leur sera paye d'avance, de trois mois en trois mois, par le 
tresorier du district, a peine pour lui d'y etre contraint par corps, 



3o6 APPENDIX 

sur une simple sommatlon; et dans le cas ou I'eveque, cure oit 
vicaire, viendrait a mourir ou a donner sa demission, avant la fin 
du quartier, il ne pourra etre exerce, contre lui ni contre ses 
heritiers, aucune repetition. 

Art. 8. Pendant la vacance des eveches, des cures et de tous 
offices ecclesiastiques, payes par la nation, les fruits du traitement 
qui y est attache seront verses dans la caisse du district, pour 
subvenir aux depenses dont il va etre parle. 

Art. 9. Les cures qui, a cause de leur grand age ou de leurs 
infirmites, ne pourraient plus vaquer a leurs fonctions, en don- 
neront avis au directoire du departement qui, sur les instructions 
de la municipalite et de I'administration du district, laissera a 
leur choix, s'il y a lieu, ou de prendre un vicaire de plus, lequel 
sera paye par la nation, sur le meme pied que les autres vicaires, 
ou de se retirer avec une pension egale au traitement qui aurait 
ete fourni au vicaire. 

Art. 10. Pourront aussi les vicaires, aumoniers des hopitaux, 
superieurs des seminaires et tous autres exergant les fonctions 
publiques, en faisant constater leur etat de la maniere qui vient 
d'etre prescrite, se retirer avec une pension de la valeur du traite- 
ment dont ils jouissaien't, pourvu qu'il n'excede pas la somme de 
800 livres. 

Art. II. La fixation qui vient d'etre faite du traitement des 
ministres de la religion aura lieu a compter du jour de la publi- 
cation du present decret ; mais seulement pour ceux qui seront 
pourvous, par la suite, d'offices ecclesiastiques. A I'egard des 
titulaires actuels, soit ceux dont les offices sont conserves, leur 
traitement sera fixe par un decret particulier. 

Art. 12. Au moyen du traitement qui leur est assure par la pre- 
sente constitution, les eveques, les cures et leurs vicaires exer- 
ceront gratuitement les fonctions episcopales et curiales. 



TITRE IV 
De la loi de la residence 

Article Premier. La loi de la residence sera regulierement 
observee; et tous ceux qui seront revetus d'un office ou emploi 
ecclesiastique y seront soumis sans aucune exception ni dis- 
tinction. 

Art. 2. Aucun eveque ne pourra s'absenter, chaque annee, pen- 
dant plus de quinze jours consecutifs, hors de son diocese, que 



APPENDIX 307 

dans le cas d'line veritable necessite, et avec ragrement du direc- 
toire du departement dans leqiiel son siege sera etabli. 

Art. 3. Ne pourront pareillement les cures et les vicaircs s'ab- 
senter du lieu de leurs fonctions, au dcla du tcrme qui vicnt 
d'etre fixe, que pour des raisons graves, et meme. en ce cas, 
seront tenus les cures d'obtenir Tagrement tant de Icur evequc 
que du directoire de leur district ; les vicaircs. la permission de 
leur cure. 

Art. 4. Si un eveque ou un cure s'ecartait de la loi de la resi- 
dence, la municipalite du lieu en donnerait avis au procureur 
general syndic du departement, qui I'avertirait par ecrit de ren- 
trer dans son devoir, et, apres sa seconde monition, le pour- 
suivrait pour le faire declarer dechu de son traitement pour tout 
le temps de son absence. 

Art. 5. Les eveques, les cures, les vicaires, ne pourront accepter 
de charges, d'emplois, ou de commissions qui les obligeraient de 
s'eloigner de leur diocese ou de leur paroisse, ou qui les enleve- 
raient aux fonctions de leur ministere, et ceux qui en sont ac- 
tuellement pourvus seront tenus de faire leur option dans le 
delai de trois mois. a compter de la notification qui leur sera faite 
du present decret, par le procureur general syndic de leur departe- 
ment, sinon et apres I'expiration de leur delai leur office sera 
repute vacant, et il leur sera donne un successeur en la forme 
ci-dessus prescrite. 

Art. 6. Les eveques, les cures et les vicaires pourront, comme 
citoyens actifs, assister aux assemblies primaires et electorales, 
y etre nommes electeurs, deputes aux legislatures, elus membres 
du conseil general de la commune et du conseil des administra- 
tions du district et des departements. Mais leurs fonctions sont 
declarees incompatibles avec celles de maires et autres officiers 
municipaux et des membres des directoires de district et de de- 
partement ; et, s'ils etaient nommes, ils seraient tenus de faire 
leur option. 

Art. 7. L'incompatibilite mentionnee dans I'article 6 n'aura effet 
que pour I'avenir, et si aucuns eveques, cures ou vicaires ont ete 
appeles par les vceux de leurs concitoyens aux offices de maire, 
et autres municipaux, ou nommes membres des directoires de dis- 
trict et de departement, ils pourront continuer d'en exercer les 
fonctions. 

C.-F. DE BoNNAY, president. 

P. DE Delley, Robespierre, Populus, Dupont (de 
Nemours), Garat aine, Regnault (de Saixt- 
Angely), secretaires. 



308 APPENDIX 

III 

ATTITUDE OF THE CONVENTION 

In its public manifesto of December 5, 1794, the Convention 
asserted : 

"Vos maitres vous disent que la nation frangaise a proscrit 
toutes les religions, qu'elle a substitue le culte de quelques hommes 
a celui de la Divinite. lis nous peignent a vos yeux comme un 
peuple idolatre ou insense. lis mentent. Le peuple frangais et 
ses representants respectent la liberte de tous les cultes et n'en 
proscrivent aucun, lis honorent la vertu des martyrs de Fhu- 
manite, sans engouement et sans idolatrie ; ils abhorrent I'intole- 
rance et la superstition, de quelques pretextes qu'elles se couvrent ; 
ils condamnent les extravagances du philosophisme comme les 
folies de la superstition et comme les crimes du fanatisme." 

On the seventh it passed the following law : 

"La Convention nationale, considerant ce qui exigent d'elle les 
principes qu'elle a proclames au nom du peuple frangais et le 
maintien de la tranquillite publique, decrete: 

Article Premier. Defend toutes violences ou mesures con- 
traires a la liberte ; 

Art. 2. La surveillance des autorites constituees et Taction de 
la force publique se renfermeront, a cet egard, chacune pour ce 
qui les concerne, dans les mesures de police et surete publique ; 

Art. 3. La Convention, par les dispositions precedentes, n'en- 
tend deroger en aucune maniere aux lois repressives, ni aux pre- 
cautions de salut public contre les pretres refractaires ou turbu- 
lents et contre tous ceux qui tenteraient d'abuser du pretexte de 
la religion pour compromettre la cause de la liberte. 

EUe n'entend pas non plus fournir a qui que ce soit aucun pre- 
texte d'inquieter le patriotisme et de ralentir I'essor de I'esprit 
public. [Two days later these words were added : La Convention 
n'entend pas non plus improuver ce qui a ete fait ces derniers 
jours en vertu des arretes des representants du peuple. Inasmuch 
as the measures to which they refer were expressly aimed against 
religion, the inconsistency and irony of the whole document are 
self-evident.] 

La Convention invite tous les bons citoyens, au nom de la patrie, 
a abstenir de toutes disputes theologiques ou etrangeres aux 
grands interets du peuple frangais, pour concourir de tous leurs 
moyens au triomphe de la Republique et a la ruine de ses ennemis. 



APPENDIX 309 

L'adresse en forme de reponse aux manifcstcs des rois ligues 
centre la Republique, decretee par la Convention nationale le 
15 frimaire [December fifth], sera reimprimee par les ordres des 
administrations de district pour etre repandue ct affichee dans 
Tetendiie de chaque district; elle sera lue, ainsi que le present 
decret, au plus prochain jour de decadi, dans les assemblees de 
commune ou de section, par les officiers municipaux et par les 
presidents des sections." The decree of Ventose (February, 
1795) was the expansion of this idea, a stroke of foreign policy. 



IV 

THE CONCORDAT. See p. 263 

Du 18 Germinal, an X de la Republique une et indivisible. 
Au nom du peuple franqais, Bonaparte, premier Consul, Proclamc 
loi de la Republique le decret suivant, rendu par le Corps legis- 
latif le 18 germinal an X, conformement a la proposition faite 
par le Gouvernement le 15 dudit mois, communiquee au Tribunal 
le meme jour. 

Decret 

La convention passe a Paris, le 26 messidor an IX, entre le 
Pape et le Gouvernement frangais, et dont les ratifications ont ete 
echangees a Paris le 23 fructidor an IX [10 septembre 1801]. en- 
semble les articles organiques de ladite convention, les articles 
organiques des cultes protestans, dont la teneur suit, seront pro- 
mulgues et executes comme des lois de la Republique. 

Convention entre le Gouvernement franqais et Sa Saintete Pie 
VII, echangee le 23 fructidor an IX [10 Septembre 1801] 

Le premier Consul de la republique frangaise, et sa Saintete le 
souverain Pontife Pie VII, ont nomme pour leurs plenipotentiaires 
respectif : 

Le premier Consul, les citoyens Joseph Bonaparte, conseiller 
d'etat, Cretet, conseiller d'etat, et Bernier, docteur en theologie, 
cure de Saint-Laud d'Angers, munis de pleins pouvoirs ; 

Sa Saintete, son eminence monseigneur Hercule Consalvi, car- 
dinal de la sainte £glise romaine, diacre de Sainte-Agathe ad 
Suburram, son secretaire d'etat; Joseph Spina, archeveque de 



3IO APPENDIX 

Corinthe, prelat domestique de sa Saintete, assistant du trone 
pontifical, et le pere Caselli, theologien consultant de sa Saintete, 
pareillement munis de pleins pouvoirs en bonne et due forme; 

Lesquels, apres I'echange des pleins pouvoirs respectifs, ont 
arrete la convention suivante: 

Convention entre le Gouvernement frangais et sa 
Saintete Pie VII 

Le Gouvernement de la Republique frangaise reconnait que la 
religion catholique, apostolique et romaine, est la religion de la 
grande majdrite des citoyens frangais. 

Sa Saintete reconnait egalement que cette meme religion a retire 
et attend encore en ce moment le plus grand bien et le plus grand 
eclat de I'etablissement du culte catholique en France, et de la 
profession particuliere qu'en font les Consuls de la Republique. 

En consequence, d'apres cette reconnaissance mutuelle, tant 
pour le bien de la religion que pour le maintien de la tranquillite 
interieure, ils sont convenus de ce qui suit : 

Art. P'- La religion catholique, apostolique et romaine, sera 
librement exercee en France: son culte sera public, en se con- 
formant aux reglemens de police que le Gouvernement jugera 
necessaires pour la tranquillite publique. 

IL II sera fait par le Saint-Siege, de concert avec le Gouverne- 
ment, une nouvelle circonscription des dioceses frangais. 

in. Sa Saintete declarera aux titulaires des eveches frangais, 
qu'elle attend d'eux avec une ferme confiance, pour le bien de la 
paix et de I'unite, toute espece de sacrifices, meme celui de leurs 
sieges. 

D'apres cette exhortation, s'ils se refusaient a ce sacrifice com- 
mands par le bien de I'Eglise (refus neanmoins auquel sa Sain- 
tete ne s'attend pas), il sera pourvu, par de nouveaux titulaires, 
au gouvernement des eveches de la circonscription nouvelle, de 
la maniere suivante. 

IV. Le premier Consul de la Republique nommera, dans les 
trois mois qui suivront la publication de la bulle de sa Saintete, 
aux archeveches et eveches de la circonscription nouvelle. Sa 
Saintete conferera I'institution canonique, suivant les formes etab- 
lies par rapport a la France avant le changement de gouvernement. 

V. Les nominations aux eveches qui vaqueront dans la suite, 
seront egalement faites par le premier Consul, et I'institution 
canonique sera donnee par le Saint-Siege, en conformite de I'ar- 
ticle precedent. 



APPENDIX 311 

VI. Les eveques, avant d'entrer en fonctions, pretcront directc- 
ment, entre les mains du premier Consul, le serment de fidelite 
qui etait en usage avant le changement de gouvernement, exprime 
dans les termes suivans : 

'7e jure et promets a Dieu, sur les saints evangiles, de garden 
obeissance et fidelite au Gouvernement etabli par la Constitution 
de la Republique frangaise. Je promets aussi de n'avoir aucune 
intelligence, de n'assister a aucun conseil, de n'entretenir aucune 
ligue, soit au-dedans, soit au-dehors, qui soit contraire a la tran- 
quillite publique; et si, dans mon diocese ou ailleurs, j'apprends 
qu'il se trame quelque chose au prejudice de I'Etat, je le fcrai 
savoir au Gouvernement." 

VII. Les ecclesiastiques du second ordre preteront le meme ser- 
ment entre les mains des autorites civiles designees par le Gou- 
vernement. 

VIII. La formule de priere suivante sera recitee a la fin de 
I'office divin, dans toutes les eglises catholiques de France : 

Domine, salvam fac Rempuhlicam; 
Doruinc, salvos fac Consulcs. 

IX. Les eveques feront une nouvelle circonscription des pa- 
roisses de leurs dioceses, qui n'aura d'effet que d'apres le con- 
sentement du Gouvernement. 

X. Les eveques nommeront aux cures. 

Leur choix ne pourra tomber que sur des personnes agreees 
par le Gouvernement. 

XI. Les eveques pourront avoir un chapitre dans leur cathe- 
drale, et un seminaire pour leur diocese, sans que le Gouverne- 
ment s'oblige a les doter. 

XII. Toutes les eglises, metropolitaines, cathedrales, parois- 
siales, et autres non alienees, necessaires au culte, seront remises a 
la disposition des eveques. 

XIII. Sa Saintete, pour le bien de la paix et I'heureux retab- 
lissement de la religion catholique, declare que ni elle, ni ses 
successeurs, ne troubleront en aucune maniere les acquereurs des 
biens ecclesiastiques alienes, et qu'en consequence, la propriete de 
ces memes biens, les droits et revenus y attaches, demeureront 
incommutables entre leurs mains ou celles de leurs ayants-cause. 

XIV. Le Gouvernement assurera un traitement convenable aux 
eveques et aux cures dont les dioceses et les paroisses seront 
compris dans la circonscription nouvelle. 

XV. Le Gouvernement prendra egalement des mesures pour 



312 APPENDIX 

que les cathollques frangais puissent, s'ils le veulent, faire en 
faveur des eglises, des fondations. 

XVI. Sa Saintete reconnait dans le premier Consul de la Re- 
publique frangaise, les memes droits et prerogatives dont jouissait 
pres d'elle I'ancien gouvernement. 

XVII. II est convenu entre les parties contractantes que, dans 
le cas oil quelqu'un des successeurs du premier Consul actuel ne 
serait pas catholique, les droits et prerogatives mentionnes dans 
I'article ci-dessus, et la nomination aux eveches seront regies, 
par rapport a lui, par une nouvelle convention. 

Fait a Paris, le 26 Messidor an IX. 

Signe Joseph Bonaparte [L.S.]. Hercules, Cardinalis Consalvi 
[L.S.]. Cretet [L.S.]. Joseph, archiep. Corinthi [L.S.]. Bernier 
[L.S.]. F. Carolus Caselli [L.S.]. 



THE ORGANIC ARTICLES 
Articles Organiques de la Convention du 26 Messidor an IX 

TITRE 1" 

Du regime de V^glise catholique dans ses rapports generaux 
avec les droits et la police de V^tat 

Art. pi Aucune bulle, bref, rescrit, decret, mandat, provision, 
signature servant de provision, ni autres expeditions de la cour 
de Rome, meme ne concernant que les particuliers, ne pourront 
etre regus, publics, imprimes, ni autrement mis a execution, sans 
I'autorisation du Gouvernement. 

II. Aucun individu se disant nonce, legat, vicaire ou commis- 
saire apostolique, ou se prevalant de toute autre denomination, 
ne pourra, sans la meme autorisation, exercer sur le sol frangais 
ni ailleurs, aucune fonction relative aux affaires de I'eglise gal- 
licane. 

III. Les decrets des synodes etrangers, meme ceux des conciles 
generaux, ne pourront etre publics en France avant que le Gou- 
vernement en ait examine la forme, leur conformite avec les lois, 
droits et franchises de la Republique frangaise, et tout ce qui, 
dans leur publication, pourrait alterer ou interesser la tranquillite 
publique. 



APPENDIX 313 

IV. Aucun concile national 011 metropolitain. aucun synode dio- 
cesain, aucune assemblee deliberante n'aiira lieu sans la permis- 
sion expresse du Gouvernement. 

V. Toutes les fonctions ecclesiastiques seront gratuites, sauf les 
oblations qui seraient autorisees et fixees par les reglemens. 

VI. II y aura recours au conseil d'etat, dans tous les cas d'abus 
de la part des superieurs et autres personnes ecclesiastiques. 

Les cas d'abus sont, I'usurpation ou I'exces de pouvoir, la con- 
travention aux lois et reglemens de la Republique, I'infraction 
des regies consacrees par les canons regus en France, I'attentat 
aux libertes, franchises et coutumes de I'eglise gallicane, et toute 
entreprise ou tout precede, qui, dans I'exercice du culte, peut com- 
promettre I'honneur des citoyens, troubler arbitrairement leur con- 
science, degenerer contre eux en oppression ou en injure, ou en 
scandale public. 

VII. II y aura pareillement recours au conseil d'etat, s'il est 
porte atteinte a I'exercice public du culte et a la liberie que les 
lois et les reglemens garantissent a ses ministres. 

VIII. Le recours competera a toute personne interessee. A 
defaut de plainte particuliere, il sera exerce d'office par les prefets. 

Le fonctionnaire public, I'ecclesiastique ou la personne qui vou- 
dra exercer ce recours, adressera un memoire detaille et signe, 
au conseiller d'etat charge de toutes les affaires concernant les 
cultes, lequel sera tenu de prendre, dans le plus court delai, tous 
les renseignemens convenables ; et, sur son rapport, I'affaire sera 
suivie et definitivement terminee dans la forme administrative, ou 
renvoyee, selon I'exigence des cas, aux autorites competentes. 



TITRE II 

Des Ministres 

Section premiere 

Dispositions generates 

IX. Le culte catholique sera exerce sous la direction des arche- 
veques et eveques dans leurs dioceses, et sous celle des cures dans 
leurs paroisses. 

X. Tout privilege portant exemption ou attribution de la juri- 
diction episcopale, est aboli. 



314 APPENDIX 

XI. Les archeveques et eveques pourront, avec I'autorisation du 
Gouvernement, etablir dans leurs dioceses des chapitres cathe- 
draux et des seminaires. Tous autres etablissemens ecclesias- 
tiques sont supprimes, 

XII. II sera libre aux archeveques et eveques d'aj outer a leur 
nom, le titre de Citoyen ou celui de Monsieur. Toutes autres 
qualifications sont interdites. 

Section II 
Des Archeveques ou Metropolitains 

XIII. Les archeveques consacreront et installeront leurs suf- 
fragans. En cas d'empechement ou de refus de leur part, ils 
seront supplees par le plus ancien eveque de I'arrondissement 
metropolitain. 

XIV. lis veilleront au maintien de la foi et de la discipline 
dans les dioceses dependans de leur metropole. 

XV. lis connaitront des reclamations et des plaintes portees 
contre la conduite et les. decisions des eveques suffragans. 

Section III 
Des Eveques, des Vicaires generaux et des Seminaires 

XVI. On ne pourra etre nomme eveque avant I'age de trente 
ans, et si on n'est originaire Frangais. 

XVII. Avant I'expedition de I'arrete de nomination, celui ou 
ceux qui seront proposes, seront tenus de rapporter une attesta- 
tion de bonne vie et moeurs, expediee par I'eveque dans le diocese 
duquel ils auront exerce les fonctions du ministere ecclesiastique ; 
et ils seront examines sur leur doctrine par un eveque et deux 
pretres, qui seront commis par le premier Consul, lesquels adres- 
seront le resultat de leur examen au conseiller d'etat charge de 
toutes les affaires concernant les cultes. 

XVIII. Le pretre nomme par le premier Consul fera les dili- 
gences pour rapporter I'institution du Pape. 

II ne pourra exercer aucune fonction, avant que la bulle por- 
tant son institution ait regu I'attache du Gouvernement, et qu'il 
ait prete en personne le serment prescrit par la convention passee 
entre le Gouvernement frangais et le Saint-Siege. 



APPENDIX 315 

Ce serment sera prete an premier Consul ; il en sera dresse 
proces-verbal par le secretaire d'etat. 

XIX. Les eveques nommeront et institiieront les cures. Nean- 
moins ils ne manifesteront leur nomination et ils ne donneront 
I'institution canonique, qu'apres que cette nomination aura ete 
agreee par le premier Consul. 

XX. lis seront tenus de resider dans leurs dioceses ; ils ne 
pourront en sortir qu'avec la permission du premier Consul. 

XXI. Chaque eveque pourra nommer deux vicaires generaux, 
et chaque archeveque pourra en nommer trois : ils les choisiront 
parmi les pretres ayant les qualites requises pour etre eveques. 

XXII. Ils visiteront annuellement en personne une partie de 
leur diocese, et, dans I'espace de cinq ans, le diocese entier. 

En cas d'empechement legitime, la visite sera faite par un 
vicaire general. 

XXIII. Les eveques seront charges de I'organisation de leurs 
seminaires, et les reglemens de cette organisation seront soumis 
a I'approbation du premier Consul. 

XXIV. Ceux qui seront choisis pour I'enseignement dans les 
seminaires, souscriront la declaration faite par le clerge de 
France en 1682, et publiee par un edit de la meme annee : ils se 
soumettront a y enseigner la doctrine qui y est contenue, et les 
eveques adresseront une expedition en forme de cette soumission, 
au conseiller d'etat charge de toutes les affaires concernant les 
cultes. 

XXV. Les eveques enverront, toutes les annees, a ce conseiller 
d'etat, le nom des personnes qui etudieront dans les seminaires, 
et qui se destineront a I'etat ecclesiastique. 

XXVI. Ils ne pourront ordonner aucun ecclesiastique, s'il ne 
justifie d'une propriete produisant au moins un revenu annuel de 
trois cents francs, s'il n'a atteint I'age de vingt-cinq ans, et s'il 
ne reunit les qualites requises par les canons regus en France. 

Les eveques ne feront aucune ordination avant que le nombre 
des personnes a ordonner ait ete soumis au Gouvernement et par 
lui agree. 

Section IV 

Des Cures 

XXVII. Les cures ne pourront entrer en fonctions qu'apres 
avoir prete, entre les mains du prefct, le serment prescrit par la 



3i6 APPENDIX 

convention passee entre le Gouvernement et le Saint-Siege. II 
sera dresse proces-verbal de cette prestation, par le secretaire 
general de la prefecture, et copie collationnee leur en sera delivree. 

XXVIII. lis seront mis en possession par le cure ou le pretre 
que I'eveque designera. 

XXIX. lis seront tenus de resider dans leurs paroisses. 

XXX. Les cures seront immediatement soumis aux eveques 
dans I'exercice de leurs fonctions. 

XXXI. Les vicaires et desservans exerceront leur ministere, 
sous la surveillance et la direction des cures. 

lis seront approuves par I'eveque et revocables par lui. 

XXXII. Aucun etranger ne pourra etre employe dans les fonc- 
tions du ministere ecclesiastique sans la permission du Gouverne- 
ment. 

XXXIII. Toute fonction est interdite a tout ecclesiastique, 
meme frangais, qui n'appartient a aucun diocese. 

XXXIV. Un pretre ne pourra quitter son diocese pour aller 
desservir dans un autre, sans la permission de son eveque. 



Section V 

Des Chapitres cathedraux, et du gouvernement des Dioceses 
pendant la vacance du Siege 

XXXV. Les archeveques et eveques qui voudront user de la 
faculte qui leur est donne d'etablir des chapitres, ne pourront le 
faire sans avoir rapporte I'autorisation du Gouvernement, tant 
pour I'etablissement lui-meme, que pour le nombre et le choix des 
ecclesiastiques destines a les former. 

XXXVI. Pendant la vacance des sieges, il sera pourvu par le 
metropolitain, et, a son defaut, par le plus ancien des eveques 
suffragans, au gouvernement des dioceses. 

Les vicaires generaux de ces dioceses continueront leur fonc- 
tions, meme apres la mort de I'eveque, jusqu'a son remplacement. 

XXXVII. Les metropolitains, les chapitres cathedraux, seront 
tenus, sans delai, de donner avis au Gouvernement de la vacance 
des sieges, et des mesures qui auront ete prises pour le gouverne- 
ment des dioceses vacans. 

XXXVIII. Les vicaires generaux qui gouverneront pendant 
la vacance, ainsi les metropolitains ou capitulaires, ne se permet- 
tront aucune innovation dans les usages et coutumes des dioceses. 



APPENDIX 31; 

TITRE III 
Dti Culte 

XXXIX. II n'y aura qu'une liturgie et un catechisme pour 
toutes les eglises catholiques de France. 

XL. Aucun cure ne pourra ordonner des prieres publiques ex- 
traordinaires dans sa paroisse, sans la permission speciale de 
I'eveque. 

XLI. Aucune fete, a I'exception du dimanche, ne pourra etre 
etablie sans la permission du Gouvernemcnt. 

XLII, Les ecclesiastiques useront, dans les ceremonies reli- 
gieuses, des habits et ornemens convenables a leur titre : ils ne 
pourront dans aucun cas, ni sous aucun pretexte, prendre la 
couleur et les marques distinctives reservees aux eveques. 

XLIII. Tous les ecclesiastiques seront habilles a la frangaise et 
en noir. 

Les eveques pourront joindre a ce costume, la croix pastorale 
et les bas violets. 

XLIV. Les chapelles domestiques, les oratoires particuliers, ne 
pourront etre etablis sans une permission expresse du Gouverne- 
mcnt, accordee sur la demande de I'eveque. 

XLV. Aucune ceremonie religieuse n'aura lieu hors des edifices 
consacres au culte catholique, dans les villes ou il y a des temples 
destines a differens cultes. 

XLVI. Le meme temple ne pourra etre consacre qu'a un meme 
culte. 

XLVII. II y aura, dans les cathedrales et paroisses, une place 
distinguee pour les individus catholiques qui remplissent les auto- 
rites civiles et militaires. 

XLVIII. L'eveque se concertera avec le prefet pour regler la 
maniere d'appeler les fideles au service divin par le son des 
cloches. On ne pourra les sonner pour toute autre cause, sans la 
permission de la police locale. 

XLIX. Lorsque le Gouvernemcnt ordonnera des prieres pub- 
liques, les eveques se concerteront avec le prefet et le comman- 
dant militaire du lieu, pour le jour, I'heure et le mode d'execution 
de ces ordonnances. 

L. Les predications solennelles appelees sermons, et celles con- 
nues sous le nom de stations de I'avent et du careme, ne seront 
faites que par des pretres qui en auront obtenu une autorisation 
speciale de I'eveque. 



3i8 APPENDIX 

LI. Les cures, aux prones des messes parolssiales, prieront et 
feront prier pour la prosperite de la Republique frangaise et pour 
les Consuls. 

LII. lis ne se permettront dans leurs instructions, aucune incul- 
pation directe ou indirecte, soit contre les personnes, soit contre 
les autres cultes autorises dans I'Etat. 

IJII. lis ne feront au prone aucune publication etrangere a 
I'exercice du culte, si ce n'est celles qui seront ordonnees par le 
Gouvernement. 

LIV. lis ne donneront la benediction nuptiale qu'a ceux qui 
justifieront, en bonne et due forme, avoir contracte mariage 
devant I'officier civil. 

LV. Les registres tenus par les ministres du culte, n'etant et ne 
pouvant etre relatifs qu'a Fadministration des sacremens, ne pour- 
ront, dans aucun cas, suppleer les registres ordonnes par la loi 
pour constater I'etat civil des Frangais. 

LVL Dans tous les actes ecclesiastiques et religieux, on sera 
oblige de se servir du calendrier d'equinoxe etabli par les lois de 
la Republique; on designera les jours par les noms qu'ils avaient 
dans le calendrier des solstices. 

LVIL Le repos des fonctionnaires publics sera fixe au dimanche. 



TITRE IV 

De la circonscription des Archeveches, des ^veches et des 

Paroisses; des edifices destines au Culte, et du 

traitement des Ministres 



Section P^ 
De la circonscription des Archeveches et des Eveches 

LVIII. II y aura en France dix archeveches ou metropoles, et 
cinquante eveches. 

LIX. La circonscription des metropoles et des dioceses sera 
faite conformement au tableau ci-joint. (The table of dioceses 
and diocesan towns is too long for insertion here. It can be 
found in all the standard hand-books.) 



I 



APPENDIX 319 



Section II 
Dc la circonscription dcs Paroisscs 

LX. II y aura au moins une paroisse dans chaqiic justice de 
paix. 

II sera etabli autant de succursales que le besoin pourra I'exiger. 

LXI. Chaque eveque, de concert avec le prefet. reglera le 
nombre et I'etendue de ces succursales. Les plans arretes seront 
soumis au Gouvernement, et ne pourront etre mis a execution 
sans son autorisation. 

LXII. Aucune partie du territoire frangais ne pourra etre erigee 
en cure ou en succursale sans I'autorisation expresse du Gou- 
vernement. 

LXIII. Les pretres desservant les succursales sont nommes par 
les eveques. 

Section III 

Du traitement des Ministres 

LXIV. Le traitement des archeveques sera de 15,000 fr. 

LXV. Le traitement des eveques sera de 10,000 fr. 

LXVI. Les cures seront distribues en deux classes. 

Le traitement des cures de la premiere classe sera porte a 
1500 francs; celui des cures de la seconde classe, a 1000 francs. 

LXVII. Les pensions dont ils jouissent en execution des lois 
de I'Assemblee constituante, seront precomptees sur leur traite- 
ment. 

Les conseils generaux des grandes communes pourront, sur 
leurs biens ruraux ou sur leurs octrois, leur accorder une aug- 
mentation de traitement, si les circonstances I'exigent. 

LXVIII. Les vicaires et desservans seront choisis parmi les 
ecclesiastiques pensionnes en execution des lois de I'Assemblee 
constituante. 

Le montant de ces pensions et le produit des oblations forme- 
ront leur traitement. 

LXIX. Les eveques redigeront les projets dc reglement rclatifs 
aux oblations que les ministres du culte sont autorises a recevoir 
pour I'administration des sacremens. Les projets de reglement 
rediges par les eveques, ne pourront etre publics, ni autrcment 



320 APPENDIX 

mis a execution, qu'apres avoir ete approuves par le Gouverne- 
ment. 

LXX. Tout ecclesiastique pensionnaire de I'Etat sera prive de 
sa pension, s'il refuse, sans cause legitime, les fonctions qui pour- 
ront lui etre confiees. 

LXXI. Les conseils generaux de departement sont autorises a 
procurer aux archeveques et eveques un logement convenable. 

LXXII. Les presbyteres et les jardins attenans, non alienes, 
seront rendus aux cures et aux desservans des succursales. A 
defaut de ces presbyteres, les conseils generaux des communes 
sont autorises a leur procurer un logement et un jardin. 

LXXIIL Les fondations qui ont pour objet I'entretien des mi- 
nistres et I'exercice du culte, ne pourront consister qu'en rentes 
constituees sur I'Etat; elles seront acceptees par I'eveque dio- 
cesain, et ne pourront etre executees sans I'autorisation du Gou- 
vernement. 

LXXIV. Les immeubles, autres que les edifices destines au loge- 
ment et les jardins attenans, ne pourront etre affectes a des titres 
ecclesiastiques, ni possedes par les ministres du culte a raison de 
leurs fonctions. 

Section IV 

Des EdiUces destines au Culte 

LXXV. Les edifices anciennement destines au culte catholique, 
actuellement dans les mains de la nation, a raison d'un edifice 
par cure et par succursale, seront mis a la disposition des eveques 
par arretes du prefet du departement. Une expedition de ces 
arretes sera adressee au conseiller d'etat charge de toutes les 
affaires concernant les cultes, 

LXXVL II sera etabli des fabriques pour veiller a I'entretien et 
a la conservation des temples, a I'administration des aumones. 

LXXVII. Dans les paroisses on il n'y aura point d'edifice dis- 
ponible pour le culte, I'eveque se concertera avec le prefet pour la 
designation d'un edifice convenable. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



D'Agoult, Incites the king to 
fly, 141. 

d'Aguesseau, Henri, connection 
with Jansenists, 13. 

Aix massacre, 226. 

d'Argenson, 44. 

Arnauld, 43, 71. 

Assembly, National, declares it- 
self permanent, 49. 

Atheism, alienates Reformed 
Church from principles of the 
Revolution, 4. 

d'Aubermenil, invents Theophi- 
lanthropy, 236. 

Augereau, coerces the legisla- 
ture, 230. 

Augustine, interpretation of his 
doctrines by Calvin, 12. 

Avignon, demands incorpora- 
tion in France, 150; riots at, 
184. 

Babeuf, suppression of his re- 
volt, 227. 

Bacon, science and religion con- 
nected in his system, 4. 

Bailly, his attempt to explain 
forged poster, 141. 

Barbe-Marbois, 229. 

Barere, 208. 

Barnave, 115; proposes the mo- 
tion that all priests in Assem- 
bly must take civil oath, 142. 

Barras, 208. 

Barthelemy, turns royalist, 221 ; 
desires a new constitution, 
229. 

Bastille, 36; its fall, 50; politi- 
cal significance of its fall, 57. 
70. 

Bayle, nature of his philoso- 
phy, 4. 



Beccari, the Milanese, protests 
against torture, 6. 

Benedict XIV, quoted by Des- 
moulins, 51. 

Bernier, appointed by Bona- 
parte to confer with papal en- 
voys, 257 ; his arguments with 
Spina, 260, 262. 

de Bernis, Pope refuses to re- 
ceive his successor, 184. 

de Bethizy, views on clerical 
property, 85. 

Bible, its place in Calvinism, 
xxviii. 

Billaud-Varenne, his renown in 
1793, 196. 

Bodin, his political philoso- 
phy, 4. 

Boisgelin, his proposition as to 
church property, 109. 

Boissy d' Anglas, transformation 
of France, xxi ; denounces 
the Bishop of Vienne, 133; 
demands freedom of worship, 
211; his suggestions for De- 
cadi celebrations, 229. 

de Bonal, Francois, placed at 
head of Ecclesiastical Com- 
mittee, 74 ; decries Civil Con- 
stitution of the Clerg>% 164. 

Bonaparte, Joseph, his part in 
negotiating the Concordat, 

272, 2'JTy. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, his Con- 
cordat, 60; on the Day of 
Sections. 219. 228; and the 
events of Fructidor, 230 : his 
influence after returning from 
Egypt— ends the Directory. 
24s ; Constitution of the year 
VIII— the Concordat of 1801, 
250; his religious character, 



323 



3H 



INDEX 



254, 25s ; asks the Pope to 
confer, 256; his proposals to 
Pius VII, 257, 258; negotia- 
tions with Consalvi, 262, 263, 
269; beginnings of despot- 
ism, 269, 270; assents to final 
draft of Concordat, 273 ; pro- 
claims it to council of state, 
274; despotic effect given by- 
means of "Organic Articles" 
of various cults, 277; his 
Catholic policy during the 
empire, 279, 280. 

Boniface VIII, Bull Unam 
Sanctam, xxv. 

Bordeaux, Jacobin uprising at, 
241. 

Bossuet, his Gallicanism, 11; 
leads Galilean movement, 20; 
explains the system of en- 
slaving France by combina- 
tion of church and state, 28. 

Bouille, assists Louis to fly, 158. 

Bourbon, House of, its fate, 
xxii. 

Brienne, Lomenie de, presents 
edict of tolerance to the king, 
30, 43 ; takes civil oath, 142 ; 
character, 153. 

Broglie, reorganizes king's ar- 
my, 50. 

Byzantium, relation of church 
and state in, xxv. 

Cabanis, his essay on public 
festivals, 170. 

Cacault, appointed resident 
plenipotentiary to Rome, 261 ; 
his suggestion to the Pope, 
262. 

Caen, riot by the women of, 
167. 

Cahier-Gerville, his report on 
the king's veto, 187. 

Calas, his torture and death, 27. 

Calas sisters in Voltaire's fu- 
neral procession, 175. 

Calendar, adoption of revolu- 
tionary, 197. 

Calonne, tolerance declared 
during his ministry, 30, 43. 



Calvin, John, his interpretation 
of Augustine, 12. 

Calvinism, nature of its protest, 
xxviii. 

Cambon, 115; reports to the 
Convention on ecclesiastical 
expenses, 213. 

Camus, his influence on the 
Ecclesiastical Committee, 74, 
75 ; in the debate on church 
property, 91, 92; reputed au- 
thor of Civil Constitution of 
the Clergy, 126, 127, 141 ; ref- 
utation of the Pope's brief — 
his radicalism, 154, 157. 

Carnot, desires a new consti- 
tution, 229. 

Caselli, sent to Paris as envoy 
by Pius VII, 257. 

de Castellane, pleads for reli- 
gious liberty, 80. 

Catherine of Russia, harbors 
Jesuits, 21. 

Catholicism menaced by the 
Assembly, 125. 

Champ de Mars riot, 181. 

Charity, maladministration of 
church funds, 87 ; considered 
by the Ecclesiastical Com- 
mittee, no. 

Charles the Great, his epochal 
importance, xxvi. 

Chasset, his plan for abolition 
of tithes, 71, 72, 74, 92. 

Chaumette, celebrates the re- 
turn to reason, 197 ; in the 
festival at Notre Dame, 198. 

Chemin, his promulgation of 
Theophilanthropy, 236. 

Chenier, Andre, demands tol- 
eration for priests, 184. i 

Chenier, Marie Joseph, favors 1 
national festivals, 197; sup- 
ports Theophilanthropy, 236. 

Choiseul, favors Voltaire, 21 ; 
disgraced by Du Barry, 22. 

Christianity, place in history, 
xxv; its relation to temporal 
power, xxvi. 

Church and state, their alli- 
ance in France, 19 ; principles 



INDEX 



325 



of their union, 35 ; their re- 
lation in France, England, 
and America respectively, 122, 
123. 

Church estates redeemed from 
feudalism, 71. 

Civil Constitution of the Cler- 
gy, the law enacted, 125; its 
provisions, 128, 129; violent 
antagonism aroused, 164 ; dis- 
cussed by the Legislative, 
165 ; resisted throughout 
France, 175 ; text, 295. 

Claviere, moderate revolution- 
ary, 115. 

Clement XIII, his reactionary 
temper, 21. 

Clement XIV, abolishes Jesuit 
society at Rome, 21. 

Clermont, Bishop of. See de 
Bonal. 

Cloots, his celebration on June 
19, 1790, 172. 

Collot d'Herbois, his renown 
in 1783, 196. 

Commendams, bestowed on un- 
worthy nobles, 24. 

Concordat, meaning of the 
term, xxv ; that of Bologna, 
20; that of 1801, 62, 250, 309; 
reasons for it, 250-255 ; sev- 
enth draft accepted by Con- 
salvi,27i ; charges of fraud on 
the day set for signing. 272 ; 
final revision and signing. 
273 ; ratification and final 
execution, 274; its effect in 
France up to the present, 
281 ; that of 1803, 277 ; those 
between German States and 
the papacy, 279. 

Condorcet, supports edict of 
tolerance, 30; as a leader of 
the burghers, 148. 

Consalvi. sent to Paris by Pius 
VII — his negotiations, 262, 
263 ; problems he had to meet, 
268 ; his struggle with Ber- 
nier, 269 ; charges fraud when 
about to sign Concordat, 272 ; 
comes near to rupture with 



Bonaparte, but finally signs, 
273-. 

Conseils supcricurs, created, 43. 

Constance, Council of, its re- 
sults as regarded by the Gal- 
licans, 10. 

Constitution or bull Unigeni- 
tus — its effect in France, 14. 

Constitution of the year VIII, 
247. 

Consulate, the provisional, its 
beginnings and early activity, 
246. 

Convents, broken up, 104, 180. 

Corneille, opposed to monarchy. 
13- 

Couthon, his reputation in 1793, 
196. 

Crusades, their epochal impor- 
tance, xxvi. 

Dalberg, becomes primate of 
Germany, 278. 

Danton and the Champ de 
Mars riot, 181 ; his dictator- 
ship, 192; his renown in 1793, 
196. 

David, his association with 
Theophilanthropy, 237. 

"Days," their nature, 225, 226. 

Decadi celebrations, 25 ; legis- 
lation concerning them re- 
pealed, 246. 

Declaration of Rights, 69; de- 
bated in the Assembly, yy, 78. 

Deism, Voltaire's, 5. 

Delaunay, surrenders the Bas- 
tille, 50. 

Descartes, relations of science 
and religion discussed by, 4. 

Desmoulins. Camille. his speech 
at the Palais Royal, 49. 51 ; in 
the Champ de Mars riot, 181. 

Directory, its inauguration. 220; 
falls into discredit, 228; its 
end. 245. 

Dol. Bishop of, leads royalist 
expedition from England, 217. 

Domat. family opposed to ab- 
solutism of church and state, 
43- 



326 



INDEX 



Du Barry, her reactionary in- 
fluence, 21. 

Du Bourg-Miroudot takes civil 
oath, 142 ; assists at installa- 
tion of Expilly, 143. 

Dupont de Nemours, his eco- 
nomic propositions, 86; sup- 
ports Theophilanthropy, 236. 

Durand-Maillane, placed on the 
Ecclesiastical Committee, 74. 

"Ecclesia Dei," Bull, 274. 

Ecclesiastical Committee, its 
formation, 'j'i- 

Edict of tolerance of 1787, 30. 

Eligibility for office, determined 
by the Assembly, 113; scheme 
opposed by the communes, 

Emery, his attitude toward the 
political oath, 193 ; his trial, 
194 ; takes the Convention 
oath, 205 ; his work during 
the Terror, 206; pleads for 
submission to the oath of 
September, 1795, 216; views 
on new laws against non- 
juring priests, 218. 

Emigration, the, 80. 

Encyclopedia, of d'Alembert 
and Diderot, 6, 

English Revolution contrasted 
with French, 189, 190. 

Erasmus, discredits old monas- 
tic orders, 12. 

Estates of the realm, idea of 
calling, suggested by the 
clergy, 15, 16. See States- 
General. 

Expilly, installed as first consti- 
tutional bishop, 143. 

Fauchet, becomes president of a 
Jacobin club, 146; his radi- 
calism, 154; elected to the 
Legislative, 163 ; denounces 
Ultramontane clergy, 166 ; 
converted back to orthodoxy, 
206. 

Festival of Federation, 171. 



Festivals, their revival, 169, 

170, 171. 
Fenelon, as a Galilean, 10. 
Feudalism, beginning of its 

downfall, xxvii ; voluntarily 

abolished by the nobility in 

France, 58, 67. 
Financial corruption of the 

church, 22i. 
Fouche, one of the Thermi- 

dorians, 208; his assertions 

to Pius VII, 262. 
France, Catholicism as there 

represented, xxviii ; its con- 
dition in 1796, 233. 
Francis, Emperor of Austria, 

convenes cardinals to elect a 

successor to Pius VI, 256; 

admits loss of his power, 267. 
Francis I (the Bologna Con- 
cordat), 20. 
Frederick the Great, harbors 

Jesuits, 21. 
Frederick William of Prussia, 

relations with Louis XVI, 

141, 183. 
Freethinkers, 249; liberty of 

conscience given them by the 

Concordat, 251. 
Freron, one of the Thermidori- 

ans, 208. 

Gallicanism, origin of the move- 
ment and influence on the 
Roman Church in 1786, 9, 10; 
its connection with Angli- 
canism, 13, 14. 

Garat, in the debate on clerical 
property, 92. 

Gensonne, advocates repeal of 
the Civil Constitution, 167. 

Gerle, Dom, placed on Eccle- 
siastical Committee, 74, T] ; 
his motion on church property 
in the Assembly, loi, 102; 
denounces Montesquiou, 106 ; 
withdraws his motion, 108; 
his connection with Theot, 
199. 

Gobel, takes civil oath, 142 ; as- 
sists at installation of Ex- 



INDEX 



1^1 



pilly and other bishops, 143 ; 
his character, 153; declares 
himself a radical. 154; re- 
nounces Christianity, 197. 

Goethe, his opinion on the bat- 
tle of Valmy, 192. 

Gorges-Noircs, Society of, its 
activities, 38. 

Gouttes, in the debate on church 
property, 92. 

Grand Council, its powers lim- 
ited by the Paris parlement, 
15- 

Grandcs rcmontranccs, made by 
the parlcincnts, 16. 

Grandin, on Ecclesiastical Com- 
mittee, 74. 

Gregoire, 71, 74, 75. 76, 116; 
justification of civil oath for 
the clergy, 140; his character, 
I45> 153; as a leader among 
the burghers, 148; checks 
apostasy, 197 ; remains faith- 
ful to constitutionality, 206, 
207 ; his speech for religious 
liberty, 210 ; efforts to reor- 
ganize Gallican Church, 232, 
233 ; denounces decrees for 
religious observance of De- 
cadis — his influence on Bona- 
parte and the Concordat, 259, 
260. 

Gregory XVI, vain efforts 
to suppress "Little Church" 
schism, 274. 

Hebert, 61 ; his desire to de- 
christianize France, 157; the 
cult of Reason, 198. 

Hildebrand. impossible to re- 
vive his claims, 21. 

Hobbes, influence of his philos- 
ophy, 4. 

Hoche, suppresses Quiberon ex- 
pedition, 217. 

Holland, its emancipation, 
xxviii. 

Hospitals, their shocking condi- 
tion before the Revolution, 88. 

Hotman, Francis, originator of 
social contract theory, 4. 



Humanity, in the appeals of 
Voltaire and Rousseau, 3. 

Huppcs-Rougcs, Society of, its 
activities, 38. 

Ichon, accuses nonjuror priests 

of treason, 187. 
Index, reply to the, 3. 
Infamc, meaning of the term 

in Voltaire's writings, 7; 

privilege of corrupt church. 

22; threefold principle of 

union between church and 

state, 35 ; classical movement, 

38; other connections, 81, 95, 

132. 
Innocent XI, contests with 

Louis XIV, 9, 20, 55. 
Inquisition, attitude of Jesuits 

toward it, 12. 
Isnard, demands that nonjuring 

priests be considered traitors, 

185 ; his argument for their 

banishment, 186, 

Jallet, in the debate on tithes, 
71. 

Jansen, his "Augustinus," 12. 

Jansenism of the Roman 
Church in 1786, 9; its nature, 
11; its fall, 21; struggle of 
its adherents with parochial 
clergy, 54 ; takes its revenge 
by Civil Constitution of the 
Clergy, 145. 

Jean-Bon, ardent republican 
and Protestant, 115. 

de Jesse, proposes confiscation 
of silver plate belonging to 
the church, 85. 

Jesuits, reply to, 3 ; embittered 
against other factions, 9 ; their 
influence in the declining 
monarchy, 10: their adher- 
ence to the doctrines of Pe- 
lagius, 11; their fall. 20. 

Jews, their character and his- 
tory in France, 116, 117; as 
affected by Bonaparte's "or- 
ganic laws," zyy. 



328 



INDEX 



Johannot, moderate revolution- 
ary and Protestant, 115. 

Jordan, Camille, his great ora- 
tion, 229. 

Jorente of Orleans, takes civil 
oath, 142. 

Jourdan, defeat of his army, 
228. 

de Jtiigne, his flight, 80; his 
charity, 87. 

Juliet, in the debate on church 
property, 92. 

Kleber, in Vendee, 207. 

Labarre, tortured and killed, 
28, 29. 

Laborde, in debate on the Dec- 
laration of Rights, 78 ; pleads 
for religious liberty, 80. 

Labrousse, Suzanne, her influ- 
ence on Dom Gerle, "J^. 

La Coste, demands reform of 
ecclesiasticism, ^2. 

Lafayette, speech on devotion 
of his guards, 108; protects 
worship of nonjurors, 147; 
advocates religious liberty, 
160. 

Lafonte de Savines, takes civil 
oath, 142 ; becomes orthodox, 
206. 

Lalande, placed on the Eccle- 
siastical Committee, 74. 

de Lameth, Alexandre, demands 
state ownership of church 
property, 72. 

Lamoignon, 43. 

Lamourette, 206. 

Lanjuinais, 71, 72, 74, 157, 216. 

Lanterne, La, 51. 

Lapoule, in the debate on tithes, 

71. 

La Revelliere-Lepeaux, his 
withdrawal from the Direc- 
tory, 228 ; high priest of The- 
ophilanthropy, 237. 

Lasource, Protestant, moder- 
ate revolutionary, 115. 

Latins, critical spirit among 
them, 3. 



Latuque, Bernard de, his mo- 
tion for religious tolerance, 
116. 

Le Coz, 145. 

Legislative Assembly, its start, 
160; receives reports on riots, 
162 ; its composition, 163 ; 
Girondin influence, 182 ; de- 
clares its permanent author- 
ity, 188 ; sanctions sacking of 
the Tuileries and abolishes 
religious orders, 191 ; takes 
their property, 191 ; its virtual 
abdication, 192; takes keep- 
ing of vital statistics from 
the clergy, 192. 

Legrand, his report on eccle- 
siastical matters and his prop- 
osition, 180. 

Le Maitre, 43. 

Leo X (the Bologna Concor- 
dat), 20. 

Leo XII, vain efforts to sup- 
press "Little Church" schism, 
274. 

Leo XIII, his letter heals "Lit- 
tle Church" schism, 274. 

Letellier, his work in the bull 
"Unigenitus," 14. 

Levoyer de Boutigny, views on 
church and state, 133. 

Liberty, French concept of, 40. 

Life Guards banquet, its ef- 
fects, 79. 

Lindet, 196. 

Locke, 4. 

Lombard-Lachaux, 115. 

de la Losere, 115. 

Louis XIV, difficulties with the 
papacy, 9, 20, 55. 

Louis XV, torture during his 
reign, 30. 

Louis XVI, abatement of tor- 
ture in his reign, 30; forced 
from Versailles to Paris, 79, 
90 ; his attitude toward church 
and state, 108; yields as to 
Civil Constitution of the 
Clergy, 131 ; motives for as- 
senting to civil oath for the 
clergy, 139, 140; plans flight, 



INDEX 



329 



141 ; effect of his treachery, 
144 ; charged with confiding 
in refractory priests, 144, 147 ; 
alienates the moderate liber- 
als, 148; his hypocrisy, 149, 
150; his flight to Varennes 
and its effects, 154, 158; pow- 
er of the Jesuits over him, 
158; his message on leaving, 
159; speech before the legis- 
lature, October sixth, 181 ; 
desire for his liberation by 
royalists, 182 ; his treason, 
183 ; suspicion aroused to- 
ward him, 183 ; appalled by 
Avignon riots, vetoes decree 
against nonjuring priests, 
184; vetoes decree of Legis- 
lative against nonjurors, 185; 
likewise that making itself 
permanent, 188; desire of Ul- 
tramontanes for his flight, 
188; his palace stoned and 
himself and his family de- 
posed and imprisoned, 190, 
191 ; his execution, 193. 

Louis XVIII, xvi ; title as- 
sumed by Comte de Provence, 
227. 

Lugon, Bishop of. See de 
Mercy. 

Luneville, Peace of, 267. 

Lyons massacre, 226. 

Mably, Abbe, embraces doc- 
trines of Rousseau, 5 ; his 
monarchical convictions, 44. 

de Maistre, testifies as to im- 
morality of the clergy, 41. 

Malesherbes, supports edict of 
tolerance, 30; opposition to 
absolutism in church and 
state. 43. 

Malouet. his speech on clerical 
property, 92, 93, 95- 285 ; his 
indignation at placards, 141 ; 
plans with Mirabeau to avert 
revolution, 153. 

Marat, opposes Assembly's eli- 
gibility rules, 113; his reli- 
gion, 116; his influence on 



the burghers, 148; his suspi- 
cions of Louis. 183; his re- 
nown in 1793, 196. 

MarbcEuf, views on liberty of 
conscience, 59. 

Marolles, becomes president of 
a Jacobin club. 146. 

Marseilles massacre, 227. 

Martinique, money scandals of 
Jesuits in. 20. 

Massillon. as a Gallican, 10; his 
arraignment of the monks, 
87. . 

Mattel, mediator between Bona- 
parte and Pius VI, 241. 

Maury, in the dcliate on church 
property, 91 ; in the debate 
on the civil oath for the cler- 
gy, 136; his attitude toward 
the political oath, 193. 

de Mercy, Charles, resists Civil 
Constitution of the Clergy, 
164, 

Merlin, his withdrawal from 
the Directory, 228. 

Mirabeau. his testimony as to 
immorality of the clergy, 41 ; 
other connections. 61, 70. 71, 
78, 80; agitates for seculari- 
zation of church property. 90, 
91, 93, 102, 107. 108. 116. 132: 
reply to the Bishop of Cler- 
mont, 136, 141, 150; his death, 

153- . , 

Mirabeau, the younger, m the 
debate on the Declaration of 
Rights. 77. 

Monasteries, resist constitu- 
tional bishops, 144 ; their sup- 
pression. 180. 

Monceau, in Vendee. 207. 

Montalembert, testimony as to 
immorality of the clergy, 41. 

Montault, converted to ortho- 
doxy. 206. 

Montesquiou. his support of 
royalty, 44. 72. 74. 105; re- 
signs presidency of Assem- 
bly, 106. 

Morris, Gouvcrncur, his obser- 
vations at court, 149. 



330 



INDEX 



de Moy, advocates repeal of 
the Civil Constitution, 167 ; 
his plea for disestablishment 
of the church, 187. 

Nantes, Frangois de, argues 
that religious agitators are all 
seditious, 186. 

Napoleon. See Bonaparte. 

National Convention, its reli- 
gious attitude, 193 ; the po- 
litical oath demanded, 193 ; 
execution of the king, 193 ; 
its atrocities, 194-6; attempts 
to defend it, 195 ; prestige of 
its armies, 1795-8, 22^. 

Navarre, 219. 

Necker, his plan of reform, 43 ; 
his fall, 49, 50, 57, 73- 

New knowledge, its nature, 6. 

Noailles, his protection of Jan- 
senists, 13. 

Orders, religious, abolished, 

Organic articles of the Catholic 
cult, 275, 276, 312. 

D'Ormesson, on Ecclesiastical 
Committee, 74. 

Otto, the Great, his epochal im- 
portance, xxvi. 

Palais Royal Club, 49. 

Papacy, failure to secure tem- 
poral power, xxvii ; deprived 
of power by Civil Constitu- 
tion of the Clergy, 128; its 
historical position in France, 

132, 133- 

Paper money, first issue, 104. 

Parens, renounces Christianity, 
197. 

Parlement, the Paris, its oppo- 
sition to power of crown and 
church, 14, 15 ; abolished and 
reestablished, 22. 

Parlements, the provincial, fol- 
low the lead of that of Paris, 

Parochial clergy, their griev- 



ances and high character, 42 : 
protest against higher clergy, 

54- 

Pascal, his opposition to royal 
authority, 13. 

Pastoret, 229. 

Paulmier, Frangois, influence of 
his pamphlet, 94. 

Pauperism, considered by Ec- 
clesiastical Committee, iii. 

Pelagius, his doctrines followed 
by the Jesuits, 11. 

Philip Augustus, 21. 

Physiocrats, their creed, 7. 

Pius VI, consulted by the king 
as to the Civil Constitution 
of the Clergy, 130; his fatal 
mistakes in negotiations with 
the Assembly, 134 ; his so- 
called reply to Civil Consti- 
tution of the Clergy, 152; 
denounces constitutional bish- 
ops, 153; identifies himself 
with monarchy, 168; his sup- 
port of French orthodox 
church, 187 ; his attitude to- 
ward the political oath, 194; 
refuses to assist in reorgani- 
zation of the Galilean Church, 
234; his position in France, 
235 ; armistice of Bologna 
and treaty of Tolentino, 241 ; 
his deportation to Frange and 
his death, 242 ; interment of 
his remains, 246. 

Pius VII, 250; his election and 
accession, 256 ; sends envoys 
to confer with Bonaparte, 
257; his resistance to Bona- 
parte, 268; gives effect to 
provisions of the Concordat, 
275 ; his indignation at effect 
given to organic laws, 276 ; 
breach with Napoleon, 277 ; 
his captivity, 278, 279. 

Pluralism, 56. 

Pombal, banishes the Jesuits 
from Portugal, 20. 

Pompadour, favors Voltaire, 21. 

Pontchartrain, his connection 
with Jansenism, 13. 



1 



INDEX 



331 



Portalis, pleads for toleration, 
220; desires a new constitu- 
tion, 229. 

Port Royal, 13. 

Portugal, Inquisition estab- 
lished by the Jesuits, 12; 
Jesuits banished, 20. 

Press, professional writers for 
the, 5. 

Priests, their troubles under 
Civil Constitution of the 
Clergy begin, 132. 

Private judgment, meaning of 
term in Reformation, 3. 

Property of church, declared at 
the disposal of the nation, 
109. 

Protestantism, embitterment of, 
against Catholic factions in 
1786, 9; its adherents hated 
by the rest of the French, 
yj ; emancipation and rise of 
its supporters, 105 ; its vicis- 
situdes and final emancipa- 
tion in France, 114-117; be- 
comes almost extinct in 
France, 239 ; Bonaparte's or- 
ganic laws, 276, 277 ; effect 
throughout Europe of the 
breach between Napoleon 
and Pius VII, 279. 

Provence, Comte de, summoned 
to reenter France, 181 ; as- 
sumes title of Louis XVIII, 
227. 

Quesnay, his doctrines given in 
the Encyclopedia, 6. 

Rabaud, Paul, death of, 239. 

Rabaud St. Etienne, formulates 
edict of tolerance, 30; in the 
Assembly, 80 ; made chair- 
man, 105 ; organizes Protes- 
tant congregation, 115 ; desire 
to erastianize France, 157. 

Rastatt, Congress of, _ treat- 
ment of French plenipoten- 
tiaries, 228. 

Reason, adopted as the divin- 



ity of France — the festival at 
Notre Dame and its effects, 
198. 

Reformation, results in various 
countries contrasted, xxviii. 

Religious liberty, decreed, 211. 

Representative government, its 
religious aspect in France. 
121, 122. 

Republicanism, idea of the term 
as first used in France, 148. 

Restoration, Concordat under 
the. 280. 

Retz, Cardinal de. supported by 
the Janscnists. 13. 

Revolution, American, influ- 
ence of philosophy on. 4. 

Revolution. English, influence 
of Locke, 4. 

Revolution, French, its nature, 
xxi ; its inception, xxii, xxiii ; 
influence of Jansenism. 13; 
religious zeal in early stages, 
52. 

Roanne massacre. 226. 

Robert, influence of his pam- 
phlet, 148. 

Robespierre, his Rousseauism. 
116; on Civil Constitution of 
the Clergy, 132 ; a leader of 
the burghers, 148; desires to 
avert war, 182; his suspicions 
of Louis, 183 ; his renown in 
I793> 195 ; seeks to restore 
cult of the Supreme Being, 
199; discredited by discov- 
eries, 199. 200; his final fall, 
200; abolishes necessity of 
written proofs before the 
Revolutionary tribunal. 208 ; 
disavowed by Jacobin Club, 
209. 

La Rochefoucauld, opposed to 
monarchy. 13 ; his motion on 
church property. 108. 

Rohan. Cardinal, effect of the 
affair of the diamond neck- 
lace, 41 ; his flight, 152. 

Romanism, its union of secular 
and religious power attacked 
by Voltaire, 8. 



332 



INDEX 



Rome, theory of the two pow- 
ers, xxvii. 

Rousseau, nature of his appeal, 
3 ; use of social contract the- 
ory, 4; his philosophy, 5, 44, 
69, 124.^ 

Rousseauism, 168; the father- 
land cult, 184. 

Royer-Collard, 229; effects of 
his speech, 230; proclaims 
necessity of an agreement 
with the papacy, 249, 

Rozet, his indictment of the 
church, 36. 

St. Affrique, Bernard de, 115. 

Saint Andre, 115. 

de St. Just, his influence on the 
Ecclesiastical Committee, 74. 

Saint-Pierre, supports Theo- 
philanthropy, 236-237. 

Salmeron, views on sover- 
eignty, 219. 

Schism in French church 
wrought by Civil Constitu- 
tion of the Clergy, 128. 

de Sevigne, Madame, her op- 
position to royal authority, 13. 

Sieyes, 71, iii; his views on 
human rights, 112; his influ- 
ence on Bonaparte, 247. 

Simeon, his desire for a new 
constitution, 229. 

Sirven, his persecution and 
murder, 28. 

Spina, sent as envoy to Paris 
by Pius VII, 257; objects to 
French proposals, 259, 260. 

Spinoza, nature of his philos- 
ophy, 4. 

States-General, convoked, 30 ; 
contest with the clergy, 54. 

Suarez, his views on sover- 
eignty, 219. 

Talleyrand, 72 ; advocates con- 
fiscation of clerical property, 
89, 95, 102; takes civil oath, 
142; installs Expilly, 143; his 
character, 153; pleads for 



liberty of conscience, 154; 
his views on public festivals, 
170; says mass on July four- 
teenth, 171 ; writes plea of 
Paris Directorate for toler- 
ance, 187 ; appointed by Bon- 
aparte to confer with papal 
envoys, 257; his arguments 
with them, 260. 

Tallien, 208. 

Tarascon massacre, 226. 

Tennis Court Oath, 68. 

Terror, its effects on sincere 
Christians, 203-205. 

Teutons, critical spirit among 
them, 3. 

Theism, binds the Reformed 
Church to Catholicism, 4. 

Themines of Blois, inconsis- 
tency of his position on 
church privileges, 59. 

Theophilanthropy, its inception, 
232; its origin, nature, and 
spread, 236, 237, 238; its ef- 
fect on social status and busi- 
ness, 246. 

Theot, Catherine, her influence 
on Dom Gerle, ']']. 

Thibaudeau, 208. 

de Thionville, 208. 

Third Estate of 1789, its com- 
position, 43. 

Thirty Years' War, xxviii. 

Thouret, in the debate on 
clerical property, 92. 

Tithes, (i2, 71 ; abolished, "72, 
88. 

Tolentino, Treaty of, 241. 

Torne, protests against enforce- 
ment of the civil oath, 166. 

Toulon, fight between laborers 
and royalist army, 226. 

Treguier, Bishop of, arraigned 
for treason, 133. 

Treilhard, on Ecclesiastical 
Committee, 74; his speech on 
clerical property, 102-104. 

Trent, Council of, 3. 

Turgot, his doctrines in the 
Encyclopedia, 6; agitates for 
the edict of tolerance, 30 ; op- 



INDEX 



333 



posed to absolutism of com- 
bined church and state, 43. 

"Unigenitus," Bull, 14. 

Valmy, battle of, 192. 

Vaneau, placed on the Eccle- 
siastical Committee, 74. 

Venaissin. demands incorpora- 
tion in France, 150. 

Vendee, rebellion in, 161. 

Verdun, besieged, 191. 

Villaincourt, Abbess of, guar- 
dian of Labarre, 29. 



Villar. while bishop, becomes 
president of a Jacobin club, 
146. 

Villette family in Voltaire's fu- 
neral procession, 175. 

Voidel, proposes constitutional 
oath for the clergy, 135. 

Voltaire, nature of his appeal, 
3 ; his use of the term "Infa- 
mous," 7, 20, 21, 22, 26, 28, 
30, 38. 44. 61 ; his remains in 
the Pantheon, 172-6. 

Voulland, 115. 

White Terror, 226, 227. 



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